


Travelers In a Dangerous Time

by spheeris1



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Cross-Generational Friendship, F/F, Gen, Love, Other, Time Travel, multi-chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:44:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spheeris1/pseuds/spheeris1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>FYI:  I hate writing summaries.</p>
<p>AU Multi-Chapter Thing //  "Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love — time is eternity". (Henry van Dyke, 1852-1933)</p>
<p>It's the end of time as we know it and no one feels fine. A story about traveling through time that isn't a story about that at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had an idea for a story (fanfiction & original) that involved time-traveling & history & weird alternate dimensions. This was more than a year ago, long before I even knew about Warehouse 13. I tried out this idea with another fandom; it didn't work out that well. Tried to piece it together in an original format... That crashed & burned, too. So, I shoved the idea into that shadowy space of my brain.  
> Now, here I am: trying this idea out once more with characters that are better qualified to handle such a strange, rambling, mish-mosh of a story. And goodness knows where this thing will end up... I swore up one way & down the other that I wouldn't write another WH13 fic after 'click your heels'.
> 
> Nothing but lies apparently.
> 
> *Title is a play on the song-title 'Lovers In a Dangerous Time' by Bruce Cockburn
> 
> And if you've gotten through this author's note, congratulations to you!

/ / /

_**NOW** _

/ / /

You’ve chased down your fair share of dragons, haven’t you?

And there, along your skin, are the marks of your kills: a network of scars, knees that feel stiff on rainy mornings, eyes that do not fully close when you sleep, and – of course – millions of memories to keep you company.

Now, you stand alone and watch as a breeze flutters through miles and miles of field-grass and so this is the end of the world.

This is the end of all your travels and all of your battles.

And the urge to cry is overwhelming – though you’ve not cried since the day…

…Well, since that day that seems so long ago.

Still, the air is sweet and when you make yourself breathe it in, you do feel lighter. And when you shift your feet and start to walk, it’s like pieces of your old self just fall away from your body – layer by layer – until it is as though you’ve been wiped clean.

And didn’t they whisper about this place, back when you were wet behind the ears and so damn naïve; back when you believed you were fighting the good fight and back when you thought you were on the right team?

Everyone talked about this place but no one really thought it actually existed.

You sure as hell didn’t think this place existed.

And your hand reaches up automatically to caress the pale white ridge that runs down the outside of your shoulder – a friendly reminder of another time – but the flesh is smooth to the touch. And your eyes look down, studying this lack of a wound where one should be…

Everyone whispered about this place but no one expected to actually find it.

But here you are, Myka Bering, at the beginning and the end of all things.

And the urge to cry is overwhelming, so you do.

/ / /


	2. Chapter 2

/

_**THEN** _

/

The jump didn’t go quite according to plan, but they almost never do.

She got used to it – eventually – and her stomach doesn’t drop to her feet anymore. She got used to it and her head doesn’t spin like a fucking top. She doesn’t throw up and she doesn’t stumble around like a drunk at three in the morning anymore.

She’s gotten used to it and her feet land on the ground with surety, crouching low like an animal ready to bolt at any second. Right hand is on her hip, tesla already charged and ready, and the left hand is flared out in anticipation – of a hard surface or a person or just empty space.

She’s timed this one pretty close to the mark.

She’s got exactly five minutes to lock onto the target and, instead of landing where she projected back at the Warehouse, she is half a mile away from her objective.

But she’s been in worse situations then this.

And so she starts to run.

/

Myka Bering is dressed for the cold, in preparation for the onslaught of winter weather in Russia, but the air is still like a frozen slap to her face and it still feels like cold hands have somehow managed to reach into her lungs.

But she keeps running, skirting over the rubble of demolished buildings and ignoring bodies yet to be gathered up, yet to be burnt or to be buried. And she stays close to whatever walls she can find, knowing that to be seen is to probably be shot on sight.

She knows some Russian. She knows more German, though.

But she doesn’t want to have to speak either today.

And, really, what could she possibly say if caught? How could she ever explain the weapon she carries? How could she talk her way around the device that is attached to her wrist, this technologically glorious but still damn painful piece of machinery that pushes and pulls her through time?

And so the only answer to these questions is to not get caught in the first place.

She’s got a minute and a half left as she rounds a corner and then, suddenly, there he is.

His name is irrelevant to Myka, though she knows it. His life up to this point is irrelevant as well; all of his wishes and wants and faults and misgivings, family and friends and enemies; even his reasons for playing with destiny on this very day… None of it matters to Myka; none of it is supposed to matter.

All that matters to Myka is stopping him from accomplishing his goal.

It’s November the 19th, 1942, and this is day when the tide turns in Stalingrad.

And Myka Bering is here to ensure that history remains on course.

The tesla is out before she even stops moving and, as the man spins around, she fills his body up with paralyzing-levels of electricity. And he tumbles down like dead weight, twitching once or twice along the way.

Myka quickly drops as low to the ground as possible when the sound of the Red Army’s planned attack begins to filter into her ears. She snags ahold of this man’s limp hand and weaves their fingers together as tightly as possible, her lips counting down the seconds – voice too soft to be heard over the ringing of gunfire – and the two of them are jerked away from this place just as the surface beneath them explodes in a rain of fire and dirt and snow.

Special Agent Lattimer is the first – and only – one to point out the fact that Myka did not make it back to the Warehouse totally unscathed.

“Looks like you brought back a war wound, Bering.”

He grins like it is a good thing, a badge of honor that no one in the ‘regular’ world would ever believe. And so her fingertips gently run over the parting of tender skin, just under her left eye, and they come back red with life.

“I guess that’s the price I’ve got to pay for saving the world, Lattimer.”

/

Myka cannot say that she is unequivocally happy with her life.

She only has impressions of what happiness sometimes feels like, what it sometimes looks like or tastes like.

Sometimes, what once made her feel a pulse of joy is reduced to a faded flicker of something that once had power – like her father’s ever-elusive approval, like the attentions from some brain-dead-but-good-looking boy in a high-school History class. Sometimes, what should scare her is what makes her feel alive – like crashing into a moment already in-flux as bullets fly past her head and with the fate of what-has-been resting completely within her hands.

But she cannot say that this life – her life – is a happy one.

She still comes home every night very much alone. She still stands quietly as the food moves around and around in the microwave, having no patience to cook and, really, food is food to Myka. She still sits in silence – no music playing, no television blaring from the corner – as she sips on a tumbler of single malt scotch over ice as the hours slowly slip away.

The drink is a habit now.

It used to be an honorary thing, from another part of her life, from when she was but a simple Secret Service Agent on the fast track and from when she thought she was in love.

It was Sam’s drink.

She used to tip one back every night as a way to say that she remembered the man with affection; to acknowledge that their time with one another meant something and she wouldn’t just forget him as life moved inevitably onward.

Now, though, Myka utilizes the alcohol in order to numb the discomfort in her wrist and, subsequently, her arm.

It was with a mixture of bewildered giddiness and great trepidation that Myka extended her unblemished arm – save for a few work-related bruises – to some red-headed technician who looked young enough to still be in junior high. And that first needle to her skin… Jesus Christ, did it burn… And Myka wondered, in the midst of feeling like an invisible fire had been lit upon her poor body, if people could get addicted to this substance that was rapidly entering her bloodstream. The men and women who recruited her, the Regents, spoke bluntly at her debriefing about the perils of time-jumping – but they never mentioned if this silver liquid slipping throughout Myka’s body had any ill side-effects.

So far, so good – that’s how Myka likes to address her doubts these days.

But sometimes, as she starts to fall asleep in her king size bed – where she still sleeps on the right side, as if she is waiting for someone to join her in slumber – Myka thinks she can feel that silver stream still running through her veins. There, where the crisscross of human wiring twists in dull agony, Myka can still feel this almost imperceptible tugging of her insides.

And it feels like she is still travelling, like she is hurtling through the cosmos with no destination set, faster than the speed of light… And it is like her body is humming with a kind of movement that cannot be seen by the naked eye...

It is an exhilarating feeling, in its own way, that mixture of disorientation and euphoria upon waking up.

But it is equally terrifying, too.

/

There is a buzzing-like noise by her head and Myka blinks her eyes back to awareness, looking automatically at the digital clock by her bedside.

1:38 a.m.

And that familiar ache returns to her wrist as the device there continues to emit a low droning sound in order to gain her attention. Of course, this isn’t the first time she’s been awakened in the middle of the night by the Warehouse. In this line of work, 9-5 is just song by some country singer – it is not an expectation of how a weekday will play out.

She takes a moment to splash her face with cool water, to swish and then spit out some mouth-wash, before getting dressed with expert precision; it takes her less than ten minutes and then she is out the door.

Special Agent Lattimer greets her at the entrance, along with several other agents in various states of tidiness, and ushers them through the maze of hallways that lead to the labs.

Some of them grumble about not getting paid enough for being jerked away from sleep so early; some of them complain that they were in the middle of ‘something’ – which most everyone takes to mean ‘sex’ by the series of knowing looks shared – when the call to action came barreling in and ruined all the fun.

“What about you, Bering,” Lattimer asks as he moves swiftly by her side, “did the Warehouse ruin your fun, too?”  
But Myka just shrugs in response. “I wasn’t busy.”

In the Secret Service, it was Myka’s ability to compartmentalize that made her good at her job. The rigors of training teach you to put yourself last, after all, and Myka took to that way of thinking like a duck to water. Out in the field, her individualist thoughts could be locked away to the point of forgetting them and her emotions could be negated to the point of not feeling them at all. And sure, there were jokes as guys would refer to her as ‘Robo-Bering’ with a chuckle and a sneer.

But what those men saw as an unfeminine coldness, the Warehouse saw as a valuable asset.

And after Sam, the choice to trade one dangerous profession for another wasn’t even a little bit difficult to make.

“Agents, please take a seat so that we can get you up to speed as quickly as possible.” Regent Kosan’s voice echoes out into the lab once each of them has fully entered the room. Everyone settles down, all the murmuring from earlier dying down until there is only silence.

Regent Stanton steps up to stand beside Kosan, her hands clasped behind her back and her stern gaze cuts across each of their faces before she speaks.

“Arthur Nielsen has gone missing from the Warehouse as of 11:45 p.m. and we highly suspect that his leaving was not of his own free will.”

There is a scattering of reactions to this information, most of them conveying a sense of subdued shock. Out of the corner of her eye, though, Myka catches a glimpse of the red-headed technician – off to the right, leaning heavily against one of the lab walls with arms crossed and gaze trained blankly to the floor – and on that face there is more than a brief expression of surprise or transient concern.

On that face, there are the aftershocks of loss and of true worry.

“Nielsen signed in to Lab 3 at exactly 10:16 p.m. The cameras recorded him working until 11:30 p.m. and that is when the Warehouse was compromised. In those fifteen minutes, we lost visuals on all the labs and, at 11:45 p.m., an unauthorized jump was made.” Regent Kosan carries on after Stanton and Myka’s attention flickers to those agents who work solely within the present-time as they begin furiously jotting down the information that Kosan is delivering.

“We have been able to locate exactly five points of destination before the signal from the STCD to the Warehouse became too weak to follow. A weak signal suggests that either the STCD is being tampered with on purpose to prevent tracking or that the person – or persons – involved in this abduction did not take extra vials of the mercury-component needed to continue jumping.”

With a consenting nod of his head to Regent Stanton, Kosan steps away from the forefront and Stanton proceeds to stare out at all of agents once more, as if to impress upon them the seriousness of this situation with just a look.

“Arthur Nielsen is the Warehouse… and his safe return is the only option that will be accepted.”

Stanton’s voice is clear and direct as it fills up the silence that everyone in the lab has fallen under.

“All agents remaining on the ground will go with Regent Kosan to be further briefed on the various details of this breach and to gather as much intelligence possible on who committed this act. All agents equipped with STCD’s are to follow me.”

/

On a white board, each of the five destinations has been written down in bold, black letters.

It is this information that Myka studies quietly as various lab technicians prep the work stations, spinning the ‘quicksilver’ and rapidly typing information into computers. The other seven agents who, like Myka, followed Regent Stanton to another lab all seem to be within their own worlds – readying themselves for another trip down the rabbit hole and into a time where they must blend-in instead of sticking out like a sore thumb.

Lattimer steps up beside of her and motions towards the board with a tilt of his head.

“They seem pretty random to me. Obviously trying to throw us off.”

On the surface of things, Myka agrees with him. Each date and each place have no apparent connection to one another. Only two of the years on the board are close – 1889 and 1899 – but the locale destinations are different. And yet there is a subtle push to the back of Myka’s brain that is saying to look deeper than the surface; a push that is telling her that there is some thread tethering each jump-point to the other… 

…But, for now, the answer remains out of her reach.

“We have, with the limited intelligence acquired so far, determined that most of these destinations are likely decoys,” Stanton says as she draws near the white board and commands the attention of the eight agents in the lab, “However, each jump will be investigated. Some of you will double-up and some will being going solo.”

And at that statement, Regent Stanton calls out the names of agents along with destination points.

Myka can tell by their faces which agents are pleased with their destinations and which are not. Those heading to foreign locales, especially the Ho’nan jump, appear less than enthused. Then again, even Myka is glad to not be the one going all the way back to China in the year 220 B.C.

“Bering, you’ll be doing a solo and I’d like to discuss the destination with you beforehand.”

Myka’s eyes had already shifted back to the white board - darting over the dates again and again - when she hears her last name fall from Stanton’s lips.

“Yes, Regent Stanton.” She says automatically, blinking fast to break the vague trance-like stare that she had been directing at the information on display, and then turns away from the white board to step in closer to the Regent.

“The other Regents and I believe that your destination could be the one that holds Arthur Nielsen, Agent Bering. And since our data is limited as to who has committed this crime, then you need to know more about where you are going today than is normally appropriate.” 

Stanton says all of this in a low voice, eyes meeting Myka’s in search of not only compliance but also of Myka keeping what is learned to herself from here on out.

And Myka is quick to acquiesce with a curt nod of the head.

Regent Stanton motions for Myka walk along with her to the furthest work station, where a chair is already set-up for the ‘quicksilver’ injection and where the red-headed technician stands quietly – arms still crossed, focus still distant – to assist in this procedure.

“1977 is an important year in the history of the Warehouse, Agent Bering. It is the year that Arthur Nielsen completed the finished form of the Space-Time Curvature Device and held the first series of clinical trials to assess the device’s abilities. Of course, there were subsequent modifications and improvements made … but, without this moment, Agent Bering… without this moment on July the 2nd, 1977 taking place, none of what you see here would exist.”

Myka listens without making comments, taking in what is being said and acknowledging – at least internally – the gravity of what she is about to embark upon.

“If someone manages to erase this moment from history, the ramifications could be cataclysmic.” 

The words run through Myka’s mind on a constant loop, even after Stanton has left the lab and the red-headed technician has started checking Myka’s vitals before indicating to Myka that she sit down. Through the haze intense focus, Myka registers that the technician is asking her a question.

“Sorry. What?”  
“I said ‘do you like The Clash?’”

Myka looks at the younger woman in complete confusion, earning a quick roll of the eyes in return.

“Punk band from the seventies…?” 

At Myka’s slow negative shake of the head, the technician leans back and seems to study Myka’s entire appearance – as if Myka were a new species to be understood. Not one to enjoy being scrutinized, Myka turns her thoughts inward once more as a deflection. She replays all that Stanton has told her and, in spite of herself, she continues to mull over the other destinations as well.

“You seem pretty white-bread to me, but I think I’ll give you Bowie anyway.” The technician pipes up suddenly and Myka is unable to school the irritated look that surely flashes across her face at another bizarre interruption to her thoughts.

“What are you talking about?”  
“You are going to 1977 and I am choosing year-appropriate music for you to listen to as you jump.”  
“…Music to listen to?”  
“It’s my idea. Artie…”  
Myka watches as the technician clears her throat unnecessarily and glances away from Myka’s gaze to mess around with a very battered-looking iPod before she continues speaking.  
“…I mean Mr. Nielsen was going to approve this method of lowering the blood-pressure of agents at time-jump initiations. Some of the spikes we see here at the lab are not healthy and you could end up having a heart-attack the minute you land. Or, even worse, during transition.”

Myka nods her head like this means anything to her at all and, as if she were an open book, the technician rolls her eyes – again – as she sits the iPod back on a portable dock.

“You’ll thank me when you don’t croak at the age of 35.”

The technician says this quite bluntly before she lowers something over Myka’s head that is a lot like those old-time hairdryers that one would find in a salon – close to her head but not actually touching it – and music starts to slowly drift into her ears. It sounds melodic and discordant at the same time and Myka isn’t sure she likes it all that much. But then she’s never been known for her taste in music.

A scrap of paper is suddenly in front of Myka’s eyes and it reads ‘The song is called ‘Speed Of Life’. I think that’s fitting, don’t you?’

And then she feels it: that sharp sting that – thankfully – melts away quickly these days, followed by the momentary sensation of heat – running up her arm and then throughout her entire body. Even that feeling, though, dissipates and the warmth turns cooler in her veins… never cold but definitely chilled… 

And she is being pulled, molecule by molecule, away from this lab and from this music around her head and from this point in time; she is, for a less than a minute, no longer a person – just bits and pieces of electricity and energy…

…For a just a moment, Myka Bering is nothing and everything simultaneously…

And then she is brought back together like a puzzle reassembled, landing in Univille, South Dakota on July the 2nd, 1977.

/


	3. Chapter 3

/ /

_**PAST** _

/ /

With each jump, an agent is equipped with a tesla (an invention that allows one to disable another person without actually killing them), with the most basic intel about their target, and with whatever attire best suits the time period they are going to.

Other skills that are handy to have when a jump occurs, like a sharp mind or a sure trigger-finger, come not from Warehouse training but from the agents themselves. Since most Warehouse recruits are culled from the higher echelon of the armed forces or from government agencies with a slant towards protection, these qualities have already been honed to a fine point by the time the Warehouse comes calling.

And most of the time these few tools within Myka’s belt are more than enough to have a successful time-jump; she is quick to locate her targets, her aim is at the 95% level, and she is always focused on getting the job done – and getting the job done well.

/ /

First her feet touch-down onto a concrete floor, then her eyes are scanning to the left… and there stands Arthur Nielsen - looking back at her as if this sudden appearance of a Warehouse agent isn’t at all a surprise.

“Mr. Nielsen, I’m Special Agent Bering—“  
“I know who you are and, really, there’s no time for introductions.”

/ /

And most of the time, Myka Bering is the last person to be caught off guard – by anyone or anything.

But it is with some dismay that at exactly 8:03 a.m. - in what looks like a disheveled lab somewhere in Univille, South Dakota, in the year 1977, in the year that time-travel becomes a reality – Myka Bering realizes that her winning streak is finally up.

/ /

And then there is a sudden rush of air at her back and Myka is only able to turn half-way around - catching sight of a blur of a person - before a concussion-inducing blow is delivered to the back of her head.

/ /

_…So slowly now, when she tries to blink and when she tries to look around, there is nothing but the bright, bright light of the sun… Warm upon her face, white light pushing against her irises until there is nothing else to see…_

_And her mind is swimming, swirling and spinning, and there is a breeze rolling across her arms – fine hairs dancing to their own tune; it feels nice and confusing and strange and lovely…_

_…But so slowly now, when she tries to remember…_

_When she tries to remember, there is nothing left to find._

_…And, so slowly now, a horizon of endless green bleeds into view…_

/ /

Before anything else can be done, Myka takes a breath.

It is a shallow intake of air but still deep enough, with the muscles of her stomach slowly sinking in and then quietly releasing. And then she feels the pounding within her skull, how it centers from the back-left of her occipital bone and radiates outward – and oh yes, she knows that this will be the kind of injury that causes artificial stars to twinkle in sympathizing agony around her head… which is currently slumped down – chin almost touching her upper chest.

Next up in this physical assessment is Myka’s awareness that her wrists are bound and placed behind her back. She flexes two fingers outward, feeling the cool stone surface of a wall and then she shifts her arms - just a little bit - to feel the texture of rope against her skin.

Her skin. Her bare skin.

That’s when Myka realizes that her STCD has been removed.

And Special Agent Lattimer’s voice chases her down from a memory, from another moment when things were not looking too good – and the sentiment fits as well now as it did then:

_“This is called shit-creek, Bering, and we are up it without a paddle.”_

Myka quickly surmises that if her STCD is gone then her tesla is probably gone as well. And so her options are becoming more and more limited. But the word ‘panic’ is not in Myka’s vocabulary; she’s worked for far too long on the ability to stamp-out the compulsion to over-react and today will not be the day that she breaks that steadfast rule.

And so Myka stills her mind and she listens to her surroundings - mindful to keep her head down, her eyes closed and her breathing as silent as possible. There are no discernible sounds within her immediate vicinity – not even the faint hum of electricity – so Myka stretches her hearing as best she can. There are moments when it seems as though she can pick up on voices in conversation, but these disembodied tones sound as though they are quite distant from wherever Myka sits now.

Another breath, deeper than before, and the area around her smells somewhat earthy; like wood and dirt that’s been untouched for years and years, a rich aroma that only arrives after it has been disturbed. Beyond that, there is a hint of something else in the air – like a whiff of gasoline or oil, maybe even automobile exhaust…

“Do you intend to sit like you are now for much longer? Because, as ludicrous as it may sound, there isn’t any time for such pointless dawdling.”

Myka can feel the tightening of her jaw, teeth pushing hard against one another in a brief expression of anger – anger at not being subtle enough, at not having her tesla within arm’s reach, at not knowing that this jump was going to go so very wrong – and then she exhales without hiding the fact. Lifting her head up gently, making note of every miserable jolt of pain along the way, Myka blinks rapidly as dusty shafts of daylight fall into her vision.

And there, in between the white light and the faint shadows, is the outline of a person.

This person is, presumably, attached to the voice that just spoke to Myka. However, as much as Myka tries to focus on this person, her stomach starts to pitch back and forth as if the ground were rolling underneath her. A very distinct sensation begins to make itself known within Myka’s gut as she feels the world tilt to one side and then the contents of the last meal she ate decide to return.

“Oh good lord…” The voice says, in a manner that seems exasperated and slightly disgusted, but Myka doesn’t have the energy to care if her throwing-up has put a kink in anyone’s plans. Every heave just creates more discomfort at the base of her skull and, with more discomfort, comes more heaving. Myka is vaguely aware of a cloth being swiped across her mouth – roughly – and of the feeling of warm, dry palms against her cheek and then forehead… like a parent who checks their child for a fever, instinctually searching out some viral predator…

“Well now, do you feel better? I suppose that hit to your head was a bit harder than I originally thought…” The voice muses calmly, the smooth sound of it much closer to Myka’s face now.

And if she knew that it wouldn’t send her spiraling back into the arms of horrendous physical anguish, Myka would head-butt the living hell out of whoever this person is.

Instead of indulging that desire, though, Myka digs down deep for those buried reserves of energy and tells her brain to stay focused on the reason for this jump – even if she is at quite the disadvantage currently.

“I am Special Agent Myka Bering…and you will be taken into custody for the abduction…of Arthur Nielsen.”

The effort it takes to say these words, especially as her head continues to loll weakly to one side and as her throat burns from vomiting, is surprisingly tremendous. Adding to her feelings of increasing unhappiness is the fact that her eyes cannot seem to sharpen any of the details of her surroundings – or the details of the person who has her tied up either.

“My, my… aren’t you the dedicated little soldier…” The voice – a woman’s voice, Myka belatedly recognizes – says this in a low tone, phrase and breath both still close to Myka’s squinting gaze. And then the warm palm slips away from Myka’s brow as quickly as it came, followed by the sound of this person standing up and stepping away.

“Where is… Arthur Nielsen?”

Myka really dislikes the sound of her own voice right now. The question comes out so raspy and raw and it sounds too much like being defeated - and that just won’t do. She tries to clear her throat but all that does is hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. She swallows hard and ignores the taste of regurgitated spit that travels back downward.

“Oh, he’s around here somewhere.” The woman replies with an indifferent murmur, coming from somewhere opposite of where Myka has been unceremoniously placed.

As if it were the secret to clearing up her vision-issues, Myka opens her eyes very wide and then she closes them. She keeps them shut, squeezing them tightly until the blackness starts to come in waves of color – and then she reopens them slowly. Thankfully, things appear a little better after that and so Myka repeats this process several times.

It is on the fifth or sixth attempt that everything begins to take on a real shape and form again – and Myka’s eyes automatically seek out the face of her captor. And leaning against a gap-filled wooden wall, with sunlight falling in and spilling onto shoulders, is a woman who looks right back at Myka with a cool and accessing stare.

The place that they are in - which appears to be some kind of work shed, full of abandoned building materials and battered metal gasoline containers, shovels and pickaxes and other well-worn tools - is still covered in more shadows than not. But with the steady return of Myka’s vision, the shadows do not hide what they once did and she can now do some serious accessing of her own.

A rough guess at age is what Myka starts with, the answer landing somewhere between 30 to 35 years old, and – of course – there is information given over with the woman’s voice. While pain clouded Myka’s awareness for a short while, once she was thinking more clearly, the accent registered immediately and Myka places her bets on England being the home of this woman. Dark hair that goes slightly past the shoulders, possibly black in color, and dark eyes that have not altered in their responding gaze – steady, self-assured, but still completely guarded…

It is a look that Myka actually knows very well.

She’s seen it many times before – at the start of the day, at the end of the day, caught in the fog of a bathroom mirror – and Myka blinks suddenly in order to break this realization into fragments.

But this minute action causes a small smile to slowly curve up the corners of the other woman’s lips.

“They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul,” The woman says softly as their scrutiny of one another gradually continues, “but which one of us is willing to be so easily revealed, hmm?”

And, for a split second, Myka cannot help but feel that she has totally failed in this practiced design of subterfuge.

A door to the far right creaks upon its hinges and then bangs open loudly, which jerks Myka’s attention away from the other woman. The quick turn of her head, however, is not a good idea; she is unable to stop the groan that tumbles out of her mouth and shuts her eyes again as a temporary stop-gap to more suffering.

“Oh good, good, you’re finally awake.” A man’s voice chimes into the silence. “I think I blended in pretty well out there but then my clothes are considered old-fashioned anyway… The money, though… That was tricky and I, uh, had to get some things without paying for them. I’m not used to running… as is probably evident… but this should fit you and then we should really get out of here. I mean, not here-here but out of here… out of this building so that we can talk about… well, you know, everything…”

Myka cracks open one eye once the man stops talking and an up-close wire-rimmed gaze is peering back at her. She thinks that he looks kind-of like an owl and then must shove down the incomprehensible compulsion to laugh because that kind of reaction is really not what she needs right now. But her damn head hurts and, honestly, the rest of her body doesn’t feel too much better after sitting on the ground – with wrists bound – for who knows how long. She smells like puke, which is incredibly unappealing, and her throat still feels like sandpaper every time she even thinks of swallowing. 

So, in reality, a hysterical reaction would not be entirely unexpected.

But Myka is in no mood for any more mistakes to occur on this jump - even if said mistakes only concern the slight fraying of her professional composure due to what is shaping up to be one hell of a sore skull.

“You are Arthur Nielsen.”

It is not an inquiry; it is a statement of fact. It is a series of concrete syllables that Myka needs to hear coming off of her own tongue, an anchor in a situation that is – presently - out of her control.

“Well, yes, that’s who I am… Are you having trouble remembering things? Do you know who you are?”

Myka hears the sigh as it leaves her body and it sounds as tired as she ultimately feels.

“Yeah… Yeah, I know exactly who I am…”

And Arthur Nielsen nods his head at her, as if rather pleased with her comment, and he reaches out to gingerly pat one of her shoulders.

“That’s excellent, Agent Bering… Knowing who you are is the perfect place to start.”

He then turns his attention to a battered-looking leather rucksack, digging out various items – Myka’s tesla and STCD included – before pulling out a tightly folded piece of paper and a mason-jar full of some clear liquid.

“Did you know that many people used to be afraid that aspirin would harm their heart?” The man asks aloud, his eyes still trained on opening the jar carefully and then taking the same cautious actions with the folded paper.

Myka isn’t sure if she is supposed to respond or not; she’s not even sure if he is talking to her or the other woman… or just to himself.

It becomes apparent, though, that Arthur Nielsen talks for the sake of talking.

“It had become so popular during mid-1900’s, during that horrible flu pandemic, and people were popping pills left and right… They poisoned themselves. They overdosed on something that is supposed to help… After that, there must have been quite the stigma attached to aspirin and every ad in every paper had to tell a person, over and over, that aspirin would not hurt them.”

Arthur Nielsen looks up at her then, two white pills resting in one hand and the jar of liquid held in the other hand.

“Take these, Agent Bering. Hopefully you’ll be able to keep them down as it, uh, seems you were not able to do with… other things…”

His eyes flicker downward quite obviously and Myka stifles another sigh that wants to break free from her lips, this one not so much weary as it is annoyed by every single aspect of this time-jump. She takes the aspirin, though, and drinks the entire contents of the jar; the cold water feels fantastic as it goes down her parched throat and Myka wishes the man had about ten more jars full of the stuff.

“Right. So I think it is time to untie you now…” The man says as he starts to gently lean Myka’s body forward and that’s when the other occupant of this work shed jumps back into this one-sided conversation.

“I don’t really see how that is a good idea, Mr. Nielsen. Can we not leave her here and continue on with the original plan?”

Arthur Nielsen fiddles around with the knots that keep Myka’s hands and arms fairly immobile, huffing out a complaint or two as he works, before he responds to the other woman.

“Plans always require readjustments, Ms. Wells… and, please, no more ‘Mr. Nielsen’… That’s my father. Call me Arthur. I’ll even tolerate Artie… but not ‘Mr. Nielsen’. My father… He was a nervous immigrant to this country, still wary of the ‘Jewish Curse’ and didn’t care at all about what makes the world work, what makes things tick… He just wanted to keep his head down and survive… We were never very much alike…”

As Artie painstakingly works the ropes loose, still mumbling about this and that as he does so, Myka shifts her attention back to the other woman. ‘Ms. Wells’ is no longer leaning casually against the wall, though. Now, dark eyes watch Arthur’s movements and then they glance at the tesla that rests on the ground. Myka chances a look to the weapon as well, wondering if she has the stamina left to make a dive for it once she is no longer restrained.

Because having the tesla in her hands won’t completely solve whatever is going on here, but it might make the answers come a whole lot quicker.

“However…,” Arthur Nielsen begins, fingers pausing on what feels like the last knot that is keeping Myka in place, “…until you have been brought up to speed, Agent Bering, you will not get your tesla back.”

The other woman seems to visibly relax then, lines of tension fade away upon her pale forehead, and hands that were fidgeting return to a more calm state.

“And you should also know that I disabled the tracking mechanism to your STCD… Can’t have anyone else showing up until things are settled…” Arthur continues, pulling the final rope through the loop and then he is moving back – taking the tesla, the useless STCD, and the rucksack with him as he stands.

Myka brings her arms back to a normal position, rotating the shoulders several times and then rubbing down her arms to encourage blood flow. The ropes were tight but not the point of cutting into her skin; still, her wrists ache and she rotates them next, hearing bones pop in the process. And then she reaches back, trying to softly probe the lump at the back of her head. It is beyond tender to the touch and Myka is sure that her expression does not hide this fact from the other two people in this shed.

“We’re going to get a room for tonight. I’ll, uh, find a way to get some money that is current… or, you know, current to this time… We need food and we need to talk… we need to talk about so many things, Agent Bering… Ms. Wells?”

The other woman stands there, arms crossed and with a look of subdued thunder rolling across her face, but she releases a tight smile nonetheless as she responds to the man.

“Yes?”  
“I’m, uh, going to step out… If you’ll help Agent Bering to change… You and I can blend in, mostly… but she’ll stand out as she is now… Not just from the style of clothes either. There’s the smell to deal with, too.”

Arthur Nielsen waves his hand dismissively in their general direction and then leaves the shed with a sturdy shut of the door. Myka manages to turn and get to her knees first, arms shaking just the littlest bit as she slowly pushes herself to a standing position. She still has to place her hands against the wall, though, in order to keep the world from wanting to spin.

It is at that moment that the other woman – ‘Ms. Wells’ - walks over to the doorway, picking up some clothing from the ground, and then sort of saunters her way back to where Myka is somewhat precariously propped up.

“It appears that Mr. Nielsen has obtained a nice frock for you to wear.” The woman intones, holding up the wrinkled, polka-dotted dress for Myka’s observation.

The annoyed sigh cannot be contained this time, though.

“This day might as well suck all the way around, I suppose.” Myka replies and, as she looks back at the other woman, there is a faint quirk of the lips to be found – revealing a little bit of confusion, yes, but also a little bit of amused understanding as well.

After that exchange, though, it is mostly silence - except for when soft bursts of pain emit from Myka’s mouth unwillingly; their eyes do not meet again as they work in tandem with buttons and with zippers and with avoiding semi-naked awkwardness at all costs. When Myka is finally fully dressed, she makes her way to the closed door – taking measured steps the whole way – but there is a second where her equilibrium tips out of balance again and her body wants to crash towards the wall closest.

…And a pair of hands find her before she falls; strong fingers secure themselves around one of Myka’s arms and then there is the stable sensation of a hand hooked lightly about Myka’s hip.

Myka clears her throat, quite needlessly, once she is able to stand on her own and the hands swiftly pull away.

“Thanks.”   
“It was no trouble.”

Myka makes a move to open the door but pauses to look back at the other woman.

“But don’t think that I’ve forgotten that you are the one responsible for my head feeling like it is going to fall off… or that I’ve forgiven you that fact either… Ms. Wells.”

The other woman just politely tips her head in calm acceptance, though; eyes full of confidence despite the warning tone of Myka’s comment.

“Of course not… Agent Bering.”

/ /


	4. Chapter 4

/ /

The ability to forget is one quality that Myka does not possess.

And while this trait does not pair-up well with emotions, it is another reason why she was such a catch for the Secret Service. It isn’t just that she has an eye for details; it’s that she can recall these details – with total clarity - at the drop of a hat.

Eidetic memory is the technical term but, for Myka, she just thinks of it as being fully aware.

Or, sometimes, of being too aware.

There have been moments – hours or minutes or days – that Myka would give anything to forget forever. Like an eraser being dragged across a blackboard, certain vivid recollections would be wiped away – and with their demise so would go the feelings attached.

But, of course, no one can change the past… At least, that’s what Myka always believed.

And then the Warehouse happened.

/ /

The three of them stand side-by-side, Ms. Wells with her arm threaded through one of Myka’s own – not from any sense of companionship but to prevent Myka from toppling over in front of everyone and drawing unwanted attention to these individuals unstuck in time – and there, in front of them, is a large, man-made sphere of white.

Myka’s eyes open wide and then flutter to the point of being almost shut, over and over, but her mind is still keenly aware of all that is going on around them. She catalogued information during their slow stroll from the shed; she took in every sound and every sight as they left behind the relative quiet of a park and emerged into a sea of people. And while her somewhat-educated guess was hedging towards somewhere in the late-1940’s as their current time, this structure in front of her lazy gaze gives her a more definite answer.

“Why are we at the New York World’s Fair?”

Arthur Nielsen does not look over at Myka but there is a hint of a smile upon his face at Myka’s question.

“Good eye, Agent Bering. And I needed somewhere to think, somewhere that the Warehouse would not actively associate with me… Once you showed up in 1977, I knew that things were, uh, accelerating… and, well, who doesn’t want to see the origins of ‘the world of tomorrow’?

His hands motion to the huge banner that hangs a short distance away from them, the material waving in the slight breeze and making the words ‘Dawn of a New Day’ ripple in the sunlight. But, really, Myka is only focused on the words that Arthur Nielsen just spoke; she can feel her own brow furrowing in thought as she tries to make sense of this situation she is in. 

But there is absolutely no sense to be made.

“Mr. Nielsen--“Myka begins and the man visibly winces as he interrupts her.   
“It’s Arthur, please, just Arthur…”  
“Right, okay…Arthur… I need to know what is going on here."

Myka is not sure if she was expecting resistance or not to this conversation, but Arthur Nielsen just nods his head in agreement to Myka’s demand.

“Of course, Agent Bering… But where exactly to begin these explanations is the real problem, though, isn’t it? There are so many beginnings to contend with these days… But let’s discuss things after the Perisphere. I want to see the diorama. It’s supposed to be utopian in theme… You might like it, too, Ms. Wells.”

As they move away from the towering spire-like Trylon to the sphere’s entrance, hemmed in by eager onlookers as the escalator carries them forward, Myka finds her body leaning quite heavily onto the support of Ms. Wells arm. Her mind protests this sign of continued weakness; it begs Myka’s muscles to find strength from somewhere and to utilize it. But every time she tries to stand more fully, to lessen the dependence on having someone physically near, her legs just want to give way – the knees lock painfully, then they tremble at the pressure being put upon them and so Myka loses the fight repeatedly. She can feel the other woman’s eyes on her every so often - subtle in their glances - but beyond that, they haven’t exchanged one word with each another since they left the shed.

And Myka, even with all the concerns she carries due to this time-jump going so far off track, still finds her own eyes straying to Ms. Wells again and again.

One reason for this observation is because Myka cannot figure out the woman’s role in whatever is going on with Arthur Nielsen. It has become quite apparent that what the Warehouse believes to be a kidnapping is something else entirely. And Arthur Nielsen, as far as Myka can tell, seems lucid of mind and cognizant of the world that surrounds him; he does not behave like someone who is being held against his will.

With only a surname and a terribly wicked fist to go on, though, Ms. Wells is pretty much a total mystery to Myka - and all mysteries are like an itch that Myka finds very hard not to scratch.

And that’s the other reason for this observation of Ms. Wells – the lure of actual, honest-to-goodness curiosity.

Being curious has been a part of Myka’s personality for a long time; falling from one book-idea to another, with questions pouring out of her mouth until her parents would tell her to ‘be quiet for God’s sake, Myka.’ And while experience has taught Myka to temper this inexplicable want with restraint and to remain driven as ever to lead her musings towards the rational and not the fantastical… There are still times where she cannot seem to help herself, where she cannot seem to stop herself from asking the questions that maybe she should not…

And on Ms. Wells, there rests one hell of a question mark.

The Perisphere swallows them up and a multitude of gazes are trained to the diorama below; a make-believe city is stretched out underneath fascinated stares, ‘the world of tomorrow’ as seen from a distance – both literally and metaphorically.

“Such hope for the future…,” Ms. Wells voice is like a hush against the ear, soft and almost-otherworldly, “…and not a single shred of fear over what might come to pass…”

No one else seems to hear Ms. Wells speak; not even Arthur Nielsen, with his attention completely captured by the moving slides of the fictional ‘Democracity’ that slip across the sphere’s surface. Only Myka’s ears catch this delicate utterance amidst the noise of New Yorkers gawking at futuristic imaginings. And Myka’s mouth opens quite without forethought, the words falling from her lips before her brain can halt their progress.

“’Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.’”

Ms. Wells is truly looking at her now and Myka can practically feel that stare against her skin; it is an unsettling and intense sensation that lands upon her temple before running down the length of her jaw and, lastly, sweeping over her profile in a long silence that seems to drown out the crowd around them. Myka decides to return this scrutiny without faltering, though, and the smile that greets her lingers somewhere between approval and intrigue.

“A traveler through time and an admirer of Thomas Gray... You are a special agent indeed, aren’t you?”

And the silence around them holds for a second longer, pulled taut, until it must snap and then rest of the universe falls back into place once more.

Myka blinks and suddenly feet are shuffling around her, people ready to descend down the Helicline so that they can partake in the rest of the wonders of a world that does not yet exist. And Ms. Wells is tugging Myka along, all stiff-joints and sore head, towards Arthur Nielsen and towards the kind of questions that even Myka may regret asking.

/ /


	5. Chapter 5

/

_**PRESENT** _

/

_“A flick of the wrist, Ms. Donovan… That’s all it takes to change everything…”_

/

Claudia has perfected the nonchalant facial expression.

That particular look used to come in very handy, especially in her more ‘wayward’ days. ‘Wayward’ – that’s Artie’s word for her; like a girl washed up on the shore, no name and no island to call home and hell-bent on making the world pay.

And, in a way, his commentary-by-word isn’t far off from the truth.

Claudia was adrift, set loose by the workings of bitter fate. Or, to put it more bluntly – her parents died and Social Services swooped in with good intentions that went real sour. And she bounced like a ball from foster home to foster home for a while because she was ‘too unruly, too noisy, and too chaotic’.

One day, a place stuck to her like gum to the bottom of a shoe – unwanted but unable to fully clean away. Claudia was sixteen at the time and she didn’t want a replacement family anymore.

She just wanted to disappear from all of this bull-shit… or, you know, to somehow turn back time; to somehow strip the years away and stop the death of her parents and then mend the wounds that refused to heal.

That’s how Claudia ended up at the Warehouse.

…Well, in a roundabout sort of way, that’s how she ended up at the Warehouse.

She wasn’t a part of some elite government force. She didn’t graduate from some ivy-league university either. She has always been intelligent but no one had ever cared to put those smarts to the test.

So, as much as she dislikes the idea of ‘fate’, Claudia will have to begrudgingly blame the inner-workings of the mystical universe – or whatever one might want to call it – for propelling her feet into a bookstore exactly three years ago and for making her attempt to steal a book that Arthur Nielsen was looking for.

/

_It is raining and Claudia has nowhere else to go._

_Well, she could go home… but home is something from a movie, with smiling faces and families intact, and that’s not what Claudia would call her foster situation._

_It is a place. It has a bed and some food and a roof._

_That’s it._

_She spends most of her time outside anyway, tramping through the park in the middle of the night - careful to avoid the addicts who peer from the shadows… or she will skirt around the edges of the downtown area during the day, tapping her fingers against storefront windows as she skips school. She’ll pick-pocket fruit from the farmer’s market, rubber-soled feet sprinting down sidewalks with glee – too fast for irate sellers, rushing away with curse words ringing in her ears._

_She’ll sit on the grass and eat her stolen apple, giving absolutely no fucks._

_But tonight it is raining and Claudia has nowhere else to go, so she ducks into a bookstore that is still open. The electronic bell chimes and the clerk looks over at her – stern gaze of an old lady, already reprimanding crimes yet to be committed… And that look just makes Claudia want to do something bad, something like knocking over a book-stand or tossing a magazine or two into the bathroom toilet._

_Claudia smirks at the lady and the lady looks away._

_Fingertips running over book spines, pulling out a couple and then shoving them away again, Claudia tries her best to shake off the chill of the damp clothes she is wearing. And she breezes past the romance novels – glancing at a couple and rolling her eyes at the bulging muscles, at the flowing locks of hair; and she breezes past the mysteries about death and about loss…_

_Claudia’s had enough of death anyway._

_The used section, with its musty smell and yellowed pages, seems like the right place to go for a little ‘up yours’ thievery. Besides, Claudia likes to read. And while other kids her age are devouring dumb-ass vampire stories, Claudia is moving her way through the science section at school – well, at least on the days she shows up to school. And there, in black letters on white pages, Claudia discovers the complexities of the universe._

_And it is as fascinating as it is completely pointless._

_She digs around the bookshelf, ignoring the man on the other end who is doing the same thing; she bypasses titles and pauses on others, reading a description or two and then she moves on. And then Claudia’s hand and the man’s hand are reaching for the same book and knuckles crash._

_“Sorry.” The man says. Claudia lazily shrugs one shoulder.  
“Whatever.”_

_But she grabs the book from the shelf, glancing at the cover, before looking back at the man. With wide eyes blinking behind glasses, this man’s hand is already stretching outward, reaching for the book that Claudia is holding… and her feet move, stepping back about a foot or so._

_“Please, let me have that book… It’s, uh, a favorite of mine and I lost my copy years ago… I doubt someone of your age would be interested in such an old thing…”_

_Claudia really dislikes most people but she especially dislikes condescending adults who think that – because of her age – she wouldn’t like something or won’t be able to understand it or blah blah blah. So, she takes another step back and turns the book over, reading the description quickly and then lifts her gaze to look at the man standing in front of her._

_“So… you some kind of Doctor Who fan? Want to bone up on your classic time-traveling literature?” Claudia asks, waving the paperback to and fro slowly. And the guy actually tries to snatch it from her grasp! She really back-pedals at that point, shoes shuffling backwards with ease._

_“What’s your deal, Grandpa? It’s just some old book.”  
“No… No, it’s not, not at all… Listen, Miss…?”_

_Claudia sort of laughs at him, like a huff of ‘are you kidding me?’ amusement._

_“Miss None-of-Your-Business… You seriously think I am going to tell you my name?”_

_But instead of answering her, the man is looking her over and then studying her face like a total creeper… and Claudia is edging away, keeping the book close to her person – she’s going to take it, out of spite, on two levels now – and her eyes are darting to the left to see the quickest way to get to the door._

_“I came in here without any real purpose, Miss None-of-Your-Business… I had a dream or a vision or… I don’t know, I’ve been having a lot of those lately… But I had to come here. And then when I saw that book, the one you are holding, I realized why I was here tonight… Did you ever forget the reasons for why you are doing something, Miss None-of-Your-Business? And then you are forced to remember those reasons… Fate loves to remind you of what you’ve lost sight of, Miss None-of-Your-Business…”_

_Claudia backs up even more, eyes trained on the man, and so she slams unexpectedly into another bookshelf._

_“Dude, you are the one-man-band of crazy town, aren’t you?” Claudia says with a shake of her head and a strange, nervous feeling crawling up her spine. “God, I just came in here to—“_

_But the man interrupts her, voice calm and without getting any closer to where Claudia is pressed uncomfortably against rows of hard-backs._

_“To get out of the rain, I know… and then to choose the very book I came here to get… There are no such things as coincidences, Miss None-of-Your-Business…”  
“Stop calling me that.” Claudia groans out unhappily and the man actually smiles at her. But it isn’t a weird, dirty-old-man smile or a ‘call the police, this guy is gonna shoot up the place’ kind of smile either…_

_For, like, half a second… it’s the kind of smile that Claudia has tried hard to forget… It’s the kind of smile that echoes with the memory of a father long dead._

_“Then what should I call you?” The man asks and Claudia swallows so hard that it feels like a rock is going down her throat. But then the truth just falls from her mouth, like she has lost her damn mind or something..._

_“…Claudia… uh, Claudia Donovan…”_

_The man nods his head approvingly._

_“How would you like to talk about time-travel for a while, Miss Donovan?”_

/

“Still nothing yet?”

Nonchalant gives way, just a little bit, when Agent Lattimer’s voice cuts through Claudia’s concentration. She likes Agent Lattimer a little more than the other agents; whenever he’s been in her chair – awaiting another dose of the ‘silver dragon’ (her nickname for the mercury, which Artie disapproves of) – they have made easy conversation with one another.

Agent Lattimer has a sense of humor as well, even if it is kept on the down-low most times. And Claudia, after so many days of being the epitome of ‘emo’, has learned to appreciate a good laugh when it comes along.

“Nada. But this is a search-and-rescue, right? It’ll take more time than a regular jump.”

Agent Lattimer nods his head in agreement but Claudia can tell by the little lines around his eyes that he is still anxious about the fact that Agent Bering has not returned to the lab yet. That’s another thing she kind of likes about Agent Lattimer, too – he cares about the other people and it shows. Everyone else at the Warehouse, from the Regents all the way to the janitor, seems to play stoicism to the hilt.

Agent Bering included.

It’s a kind of Stepford Wife-ish, in Claudia’s opinion… but without all the fake smiling. In this wonderful world of covert operations within time, seriousness is the face that everyone wears. And that face rarely breaks, rarely cracks – even if someone is in trouble, even if something goes wrong…

…No one reacts the way you’d expect them to.

But Agent Lattimer has some fractures in the veneer and it shines like a beacon of normalcy in this white-washed laboratory.

Claudia offers a quick smile to the man, which he sort-of returns, and then she points to the empty chair.

“So, in an effort to keep your vital signs… well, vital, and to turn that frown upside-down, how’d you like to give the ambient systemic circulation stabilizer a whirl?”

Agent Lattimer’s sort-of smile turns into sort-of grimace.

“A what now?”

Claudia nudges him towards the chair and he sort of stumbles into the seat, eyes watching Claudia’s movements with some curiosity and some apprehension.

“It’s just a glorified pair of head-phones and music. It helps people chill out… which you apparently need to do.”

And she smothers a chuckle as Agent Lattimer leans back with a sigh and tells her to ‘change the name of this thing, though, ‘cause that’s a real mouthful.’ Then she allows him to choose the music on the iPod, especially after he gets snarky with some of her choices and a tickle of annoyance makes her shove the iPod into his hands. But then his eyes shut and there is a slight grin on his face now and that’s what counts to Claudia.

Because she cares, too.

And while Agent Lattimer listens to some boy-band classics (and don’t think she’s going to ever let him live that one down) in order to forget his troubles for a moment or two, Claudia can indulge in a little bit of worry of her own.

Not so much about Agent Bering… but about Arthur Nielsen and about this kidnapping that Claudia knows to be not at all what it seems.

/


	6. Chapter 6

/ /

_**PAST** _

/ /

“A flick of the wrist, Agent Bering… That’s all it takes to change everything…,” Arthur Nielsen says in a voice that sounds awed but still so bittersweet, gaze looking out at the crowd of people as they move from one fantastical exhibit to another, “…that’s all it takes to tear the fabric of the universe totally apart…”

For a just moment, Arthur Nielsen appears incredibly lost to Myka; he looks like a man set adrift into open water, a man who knows that it is only a matter of time now…

It is only a matter of time and soon he’ll be sinking like a stone.

But Arthur Nielsen comes back to himself, blinking behind his glasses and quickly divesting himself of the rucksack hanging from his shoulder. He holds the leather bag by the strap and extends it towards Ms. Wells.

“If you will hold onto this, Ms. Wells, I’ve got to talk to Agent Bering about… well, all of this… and I think I’d like to walk around for that. That is… if you don’t mind, Agent Bering? You can hold onto my arm if you need to, of course…”

Before Myka can answer, though, Ms. Wells steps up to the bag and to Arthur Nielsen. Her movement away from Myka is not just quick - it is borderline jarring; single-minded stance and body lined with an anger rising to the surface, Ms. Wells is the picture of indignant. The woman roughly jerks the rucksack away from Arthur Nielsen’s grasp.

“I won’t stand for much more of this, Mr. Nielsen.”

Ms. Wells voice is extremely cold and, this time, Arthur Nielsen does not correct Ms. Wells when it comes to his name.

“I am not here to be your errand girl or to tend to some wayward agent of your Warehouse. You swore to help me and you will do so… You will do so sooner rather than later, Mr. Nielsen, or I will remove the weapon from this satchel and make the end of your life my only goal.”

Myka tensed up when Ms. Wells first started talking; now, her whole body goes into red-alert – legs that have been jelly-like are suddenly alive with adrenaline and her eyes narrow on the rucksack, already figuring out the best way to get the bag and protect Arthur Nielsen at the same time. Despite all that has gone wrong with this jump so far, her priorities are still the same: keep Arthur Nielsen safe and return him to the Warehouse.

And Myka is nothing if not dedicated.

But she watches as Arthur Nielsen reaches out, bypassing the rucksack entirely, and places his hand over Ms. Wells white-knuckled grip of the leather strap.

“I know… and if we do not succeed, Ms. Wells, you have my permission to what you must. We will need help, though… and this might be fate’s way of giving us that help because… because fate cannot always be so cruel… can it?”

Ms. Wells doesn’t reply but she doesn’t open up the rucksack either. The woman keeps her gaze to the ground as she steps back, completely quiet as she walks away from where Myka and Arthur Nielsen remain standing still. Myka keeps her stare on the woman’s back, taking note of the posture and the way the arms move, making sure that a sudden tesla-blast heading for Arthur Nielsen’s face isn’t in the near future.

But the woman just keeps on walking, merging with the crowd and then disappearing around a corner.

Arthur Nielsen sighs heavily and Myka looks back at him just as he pushes his glasses up and rubs the bridge of his nose.

“Agent Bering…,” His voice is weary, like the words he is about to speak have been spoken a million times before, “… have you ever had a dream and then it turned into a nightmare?”

Yes, Myka thinks to herself; yes, a million times before.

But she does not say anything and the man smiles at her softly, and then holds his arm out for her to take.

“Let’s go have a listen to the Voder, Agent Bering. That should make for a nice distraction while I try to tell you about the perils of turning a dream into reality…”

/ /

A disembodied voice echoes mechanically above their heads, saying such things as ‘hello’ or ‘welcome’ with a robotic lilt. It seems to dazzle and wow the general public to think that - one day - this could be how they will all sound to one another; nothing but coded rhythms, staccato and unfathomable to the untrained ear.

“Something created for the purposes of secrecy and for wartime communication is now just thousands of voice-mails on a cell-phone…” 

Arthur Nielsen mutters this quietly as the two of them move away from the crowd and edge closer to a solitary bench that sits in front of the wall farthest away the excitement within the pavilion. In spite of putting on a brave face, Myka is quite grateful to be sitting down and she does not even try to contain the sigh of relief that leaves her body.

“There’s, uh, a food… area or court around here somewhere… You need to keep hydrated and you need to see if you can manage to eat… How’s your head?”

Myka wants to answer with the words ‘it fucking hurts’ but she refrains from letting her exhaustion completely show and replies with a very nondescript ‘fine’ instead. Arthur Nielsen nods at her and pats her knee… like she’s a child in need of positive affirmation, like he knows she is lying and he is going to let her get away with it…

Myka is surprised to find herself feeling annoyed at this gesture and, again, has to school her features to disguise this reaction.

It’s the concussion, that’s what Myka concludes; it’s the concussion that is making her feel like this and that is making her say things without thinking them out first. It’s the concussion and this messed-up jump and not having a tesla strapped to her hip…

“Agent Bering…? You are breathing a little erratically… Are you all-right? Is this a panic attack? Do you have them? Because I’ve told the Regents hundreds of times that the stress of time-travel may not manifest at first… It could take five jumps or fifteen… or fifty before symptoms of some sort of post-traumatic stress shows up in an agent…”

Then two fingertips are on her wrist, monitoring Myka’s pulse, and though she has tried to stay in the realm of ‘highly-trained professional’ during this ordeal – well, Myka has reached her limit for the day.

“Please do not do that right now. I’m fine.”

She can hear the tone of her own voice, clipped and cool, and Arthur Nielsen slowly pulls his hand away from her arm. The man then leans back against the wall, mimicking Myka’s pose to some degree, so that they are both facing outward; each of them staring aimlessly at the pockets of people still milling about the communication centers and displays.

“If you could stop something terrible from happening, Agent Bering, would you do it?”

Myka’s eyes close almost involuntarily as a wave of images she’d rather not remember flood her brain and she grits her teeth against the sudden onslaught of memories best left alone.

_It’s the concussion. It’s this jump. It’s the fact that nothing is as it should be._

“No, Mr. Nielsen, this is not how things are going to go.”

He chances a small interruption with her that he didn’t attempt with Ms. Wells, once again mentioning his dislike of being addressed as ‘Mr. Nielsen’, but Myka doesn’t care; in this particular moment, the wants and wishes of a displaced Warehouse genius mean very little to Myka Bering.

“I’m the one who is going to be asking you the questions,” Myka continues, eyes open and fixed upon Arthur Nielsen’s face, “…and you’re going to answer every single one.”

The voice of the Voder drifts through the atmosphere, electronic ‘good-byes’ issued to each person that walks out of the pavilion. And after the click-clack of women’s heels and men’s dress shoes on tiled flooring fades away, Myka and Arthur Nielsen find themselves in a world of silence. The man leans his head all the way back, a crown of curly salt-and-pepper hair pressed firmly to the wall, as his arms cross comfortably about his stomach and his gaze wanders towards the ceiling.

“I’ve already given you the only answer that matters, Agent Bering… I may have wrapped it up in a question of my own, but the answer is still right there…”

Myka feels one of her hands growing tight from the inside-out, the fingers curving inward with irritation, and the fist that forms slightly shakes upon her thigh.

“…Excuse me?” She bites out rather harshly but Arthur Nielsen keeps his eyes on the ceiling, seconds slowly ticking by – one after the other - before he replies.

“I read a story once, when I was a young man… It was actually originally published in the year we are in now, 1939… But my version was some beaten-up paperback that I found hidden behind other books when I was twenty-something. It was barely worth the ten cents I paid for it… And yet it was this book, Agent Bering… It was this little story that awakened my obsession with traveling through time and with the idea of being able to alter the past. To be able to prevent atrocities or to figure out cures faster, to create a world without so much suffering… That’s what I wanted to do, Agent Bering. I wanted to be just like Martin Padway… I wanted to stop darkness from falling…”

Arthur Nielsen looks away from the ceiling to meet Myka’s stare, which is now vacillating somewhere between frustration and confusion. And even as she tries to formulate something to say in response, her mouth remains closed and words are suddenly missing from her tongue.

“I’m trying to stop something terrible from happening, Agent Bering… That's the answer to all of your questions. And even if you don't understand it right now, you are here to help me... You are here to save the day, Agent Bering…”

/ /

_Tracy is in trouble._

_And, really, this is nothing new to Myka._

_Tracy is very good at pushing buttons._

_In psychology books, it would probably say that Tracy is nearing the climax of the rebellious teenage phase – where children want to be adults but crave none of the responsibility that goes along with getting older – and, just like a volcano, the girl is about to blow._

_For all her girly-ness, for all her too-cool-for-school status, and for all her traditionally good looks…_

_…Tracy Bering seems to gravitate towards causing a dramatic scene at least once a day._

_And so Myka’s sister is in trouble, being read the riot act by a father that is genuinely disappointed in the ‘chosen’ child’s behavior. Myka glances at her mother, sitting off to the side with an impassive face that only loses its cool sting in the eyes – there, swirling in the white, is a hint of the dismay._

_Tracy, after all, is supposed to be easier to handle._

_Tracy isn’t the odd-ball sibling, with nose pressed firmly to a book and with a silver-tipped foil clutched in the hand. Tracy isn’t the quiet one, subdued by the years of being overlooked, and still not silent enough – making noise by being different than expected, causing waves by letting parents down._

_And yet… Tracy is in trouble and, past the defiant stare, Myka can read the angst upon Tracy’s features._

_Like a storm with no outlet, her sister is spinning within these walls and Myka knows that feeling all too well. The feeling of being trapped, the feeling of disapproval falling down on your head, the feeling of not being understood, the feeling of being out of control…_

_Tracy finds her control in being popular._

_Myka finds her control in not feeling much._

_And they are both caught up in the web of their parents’ expectations._

_“I, uh… forgot about this assignment until right now… I really need to get to the library…” Myka’s voice is moving somewhere between fake shock and real edginess. Her father, ever the astute one, is not buying this random excuse._

_“This is not the time for your interruptions, Myka.”_

_But her mother seems worn down, tired of whatever is being said and whatever isn’t being addressed, and she stands up abruptly._

_“You are not going to that party on Saturday night, Tracy, and that is final… Now, take your sister to the library.”_

_There are challenging looks bouncing between their mother and father but Myka wastes no time in grabbing her book-bag. And Tracy wastes no time in shoving the door open with anger, bell ringing above them in a sudden clanging rage._

_The car ride is mostly quiet, the low murmur of the radio as the only sound to compete with wheels on pavement… and this is how it goes, on most days… They are not close. They are too different to be close. It’s like they live on opposite sides of the world and only see each other from across the way; waving once in a while but, really, just ignoring that other person that makes no sense. But there are moments… Moments where they seem to be suffering from the same thing and they reach out for a second… They seek a breath of commonality, inhaling the air that they both actually share…_

_It’s only when they exhale do they forget and go their separate ways again._

_“Thanks. I couldn’t stand another minute in there.” Tracy says softly, eyes on the road ahead as the engine idles outside of the library. Myka is already getting out of the car, bag held loosely in her hand, and she shrugs her shoulders like it doesn’t matter much._

_And it doesn’t matter much. This moment is already almost over and, soon enough, they will be like strangers once more. Tracy will go and vent to her group of friends. Myka will go and disappear into some novel. Tracy will continue to shine like a star and Myka will continue to fade away from view._

_And, really, Myka should just move on and say nothing. But the words come out anyway, unexpectedly crossing the barrier of her lips and her better judgment…_

_“You needed my help.”_

_Tracy looks at her then, a real and honest-to-god look, and Myka almost shrinks beneath the stare. But then her sister smiles at her, a real and honest-to-god smile, and Myka slowly returns it…_

_“Thank you.”_

_And for a brief moment, Myka feels the warmth of being close to her sister; for a moment, Myka feels like she has just saved the day._

/ /

Myka feels a knot form in her stomach, an invisible tangle of feelings that make perfect sense and then make no sense at all; it is the twisting coil of the conveniently misplaced – recollections and sensations, all banked down deep in order to survive the slings and arrows of a world that cannot be bent or shaped to one’s liking. And Myka can feel the threads of control sliding through her fingertips like water; she can feel the inescapable pull towards the past and her emotions seem to ricochet in her gut, like a pinball going from bumper to bumper.

With just one sentence, Arthur Nielsen has catapulted Myka to another world and the fist on her thigh grows even tighter; blunt nails biting into the flesh of her palm in an effort to contain and then to forget again.

Myka hasn’t truly thought about Tracy in a long time.

Despite those random instances of solidarity during the teenage years, they were never really close and, once Myka left for university, they never really talked either. Sure, she would hear about her sister’s various accomplishments or her sister’s various boyfriends from her mother – a contradiction of subdued glee on the woman’s face at every Thanksgiving – but Myka and Tracy do not attempt to interact with each other.

Myka got a card two or three Christmases ago, back when Sam was still around, and she stuck it underneath a book that she knew she would never finish reading.

Arthur Nielsen pats her knee once more but, this time, Myka doesn’t really register the action.

“…You need more water, I think… and some food, if I can bum some change from someone… I’ll see what I can do, Agent Bering, and you… well, just stay here and I’ll be back…”

Myka doesn’t say a word, though, as his feet shuffle away from the bench and as the Voder bids the man farewell with automated precision. And so she is alone for the first time since this time-jump began, wearing a stolen dress and nursing a sore head during the New York World’s Fair of 1939; she is without the means to return to the Warehouse and she is without the means to level this particular playing field since her tesla rests at the bottom of Arthur Nielsen’s leather rucksack.

And as much as she doesn’t want to admit it, as much as that fist of hers wants to maintain possession of all that appears to be slowly gliding away…

…Myka Bering, for the first time in a very long while, feels completely and totally out of her depth.

/ /


	7. Chapter 7

_**PAST** _

/ /

Arthur Nielsen places the refilled Mason jar into Myka’s hands and then the smell of warm bread and mustard hits Myka’s nose. Her stomach responds to this olfactory-awareness with a rumble of sound and propriety goes out the window as she reaches for the hot-dog that Arthur Nielsen is offering to her on a paper doily.

“I managed to get five cents from some old lady… I think she thought I was a bum… But no matter, you needed food to help with that head and I find that information sounds better on a full stomach… Or, in your case, on a slightly more filled stomach…”

For her part, Myka is barely listening to the man as he rambles on about his food court experience; she is completely focused on eating. She’s not even that big of a fan of hot-dogs but this particular hot-dog has become her favorite meal ever. 

“You, uh, might not want to eat so quickly, Agent Bering… You could get sick again and, really, that smell of… well, you know… it was pretty bad actually…”

She shoots the man a rather dark look and he blinks at her as if to say ‘What? It’s the truth.’ Still, the words do make a slight impact and Myka begins to slowly chew the mouthful of food she is currently engaged with, finally swallowing the bite down in a manner a little bit over-exaggerated. Arthur Nielsen just smiles knowingly at her, though, and Myka allows the tiniest of grins to pass upon her lips as well.

She clears her throat, washing down the rest of the hot-dog with a large drink of cool water, and then leans back against the wall once more.

“Feeling better?”  
“Yes… Thank you for the food… and the water.”  
“It’s the least I can do, Agent Bering… Especially since you are about to embark on quite the journey just to help me out…”

Myka looks over at the man, grin now gone and with an expression much more befitting of a Warehouse agent.

“I’ve agreed to nothing at all, Mr. Nielsen, because you have yet to tell me anything of use.”

He is about to protest the use of ‘Mr. Nielsen’ or to possibly bring up his whole ‘but I’ve given you the answer already’ speech, but Myka doesn’t let the man get started this time around. She holds up her hand, a firm gesture that causes Arthur Nielsen to abruptly go quiet, and Myka holds his gaze with a serious stare of her own.

“All I know so far is that I am in the year 1939 and that the Warehouse thinks you’ve been kidnapped, which isn’t the case at all… is it, Arthur?”

The man is smiling at her again, obviously pleased with the fact that she has finally used his first name, and he shakes his head in the negative before replying.

“The Warehouse needed some kind of story to tell you… Some kind of story that wouldn’t totally shake up the status-quo… I mean, how would it look to all the agents like you, Agent Bering, if the Warehouse had to admit that its very existence is wrong? That’s like looking in the mirror and questioning your entire purpose in being alive… No one ever likes doing that…”

Myka forces her brain to move past Arthur Nielsen’s penchant for delivering information in a babbling bundle of exposition and instead focuses on a specific point.

“Are you saying that the Warehouse already knows that this is not a kidnapping?” Myka asks and the man nods his head.  
“Yes… That’s exactly what I am saying.”

_He could be lying._

That’s what years of training are saying within Myka’s head. He could be lying and he could be crazy and the Warehouse could want him back simply because he is a danger to others if left unattended for too long. Maybe he truly believes that there is some great injustice to be rectified – menacing windmills in the distance – and maybe the Warehouse wants to help him; to help him return to sanity or, at least, to safety… But there is a shadow-self lurking beyond those saner choices and it is this part of Myka that is already edging towards belief, even if there is absolutely no reason to believe what Arthur Nielsen is saying.

It’s a complete conflict of self and Myka Bering doesn’t do internal conflict; the world is either black-and-white or she makes it so. That’s been the shape of her life for so long and she is loath to give it up now. And yet emotions are being unearthed, bit by bit, and Myka can blame the concussion all she wants – and in the end, the reasons may not matter because her Myka’s gut instinct is going one direction while every other part of her is running the opposite way.

_Questions first, Bering. Doubts and life-altering thoughts can come later._

“If they know that you’ve not been kidnapped, then why are they so eager to get you back?”  
“Ah, there you go, Agent Bering… That’s the sixty-four dollar question, isn’t it?”  
“And I’d like the sixty-four dollar answer.”

He heartily laughs in response, the very picture of a ‘mad scientist’ with hair humorously unkempt atop his head, but then Arthur Nielsen steeples his fingers together and his eyes zero in on Myka’s with startling clarity.

“All-right, Agent Bering, let’s talk about time-travel for a while.”

/ /

_“As a theory it is amazing, Arthur, you know that… But is time something that should be tampered with? And you know I do not speak from any religious affiliations. I don’t believe in God any more than you do. And yet, to change what has already happened… Are we not then playing at being like the very God that we do not ascribe to?”_

_Arthur Nielsen has heard this argument before. And if it were not coming from a man that he considers a good friend, then he’d just tell them to shut up and get out of his lab._

_But James is a good friend and, despite the man’s misgivings about this particular project, he has stuck by Arthur’s side for every single step. And so this buys the man some grace where Arthur is concerned._

_Not much grace, of course, but definitely some._

_“God is a failed notion, my friend… This idea of mine, though, is a chance to do what God never could. This is a chance to fix things, to improve life instead of making it harder. Imagine a world saved from small pox or the Black Plague, imagine stopping Hitler before he could cut a path through Europe… This could be something phenomenal, James… and I think you are narrowing your gaze just a bit too much…”_

_James MacPherson crosses his arms in defiance, as he has done hundreds of times before._

_“And I think your gaze is a just a bit too wide, Arthur. You are focusing only on what you envision will happen and not at all on what might really happen after you alter these events… You are not seeing what might be the long-term effects of such an act.”_

_Arthur continues to shift wires and jot down notes but he rolls his eyes to himself at James’s comment._

_“Why must you always throw Bradbury at me? You know I am not his biggest fan.”  
“The butterfly effect is a threat to consider—“  
“It’s fiction, James.”  
“So is ‘Lest Darkness Fall’, Arthur.”_

_James is right on this point and Arthur decides not to respond, opting instead to work more diligently with the timing mechanism that he has fashioned. It is not at all ready to be shown or tested out; this is merely a prototype of something far better to come. But it is the first concrete model that Arthur has created and he is silently proud of himself – proud of the device itself, proud of his own dedication and fortitude, and proud of the fact that he has taken a ‘fictional’ idea and possibly found a way of making it real._

_Martin Padway had no device to help him time-travel. For him, it was just a freak accident of nature – a lightning bolt from the heavens as he stood among the ruins of the Pantheon in 1938 – and then, suddenly, he was in 6th century Rome. And yet, even without all the modern marvels of the here-and-now, Martin Padway managed to change the past. Some of the character’s actions were selfish, yes, but – ultimately – the good that was accomplished far outweighed the bad._

_And in reading that story, a seed was planted within Arthur Nielsen’s mind. What if one could actually figure out how to go back in time? What if, instead of relying on the randomness of the weather to enable transportation, one could find a way to control the travelling through manipulation of organic means?_

_The thought process of this whole endeavor was filled with stops and starts, with failed experiments and moments of genuine displeasure. And the amount of work to get this far has been enormous – days spent in the lab, working with various elements and variables, tests upon tests upon tests… and the end result being just another day gone by with nothing to show._

_But all of it, all of the toiling and the frustration and the near-misses have led up to this moment. And Arthur has no intention of letting the worry of a good friend get in the way of such progress._

_“Okay… here it is… Now, I’ve got a few kinks to work out but this thing should be ready to try out by next week…”_

_James steps in closer, eyeing the device from one direction then another._

_“And who did you say is funding all of this work you’ve been doing?”  
“It’s just a government-ran operation.”  
“Ah yes, that’s right… So, you work for ‘Big Brother’ now?”  
“You are really enjoying the literary references today, aren’t you?”  
“Only because I know you enjoy them as well.”_

_Arthur smiles over at James, a small but very true gesture, and the man returns the favor with a smile of his own._

_“I may not agree with this whole thing, Arthur, but it is your creation… so don’t let anyone strip you of it. Don’t let them corrupt you somehow.”_

_Arthur rolls his eyes – again – but is sure to make James see this reaction this time._

_“If they try to do anything to me or to this device, I’ll just go back in time and get rid of them.”_

_James laughs then, reaching out to pat Arthur on the shoulder affectionately._

_“You’ll make a mess of the world, I fear…”_

/ /

“And he was right, you know? The STCD… it was a mistake. Perhaps it has done some good, somehow… but it has ruined lives as well. And the Warehouse is afraid that I am going to go back to 1977 again and that I’ll succeed in destroying what I have built…”

Myka has sat quietly the entire time Arthur Nielsen has been talking, body turned towards the man in rapt attention, and it isn’t until he is no longer talking for more than a minute that Myka snaps out of her little stupor. She blinks and replays the last thing Arthur Nielsen said, finding her thoughts centering on the ‘go back to 1977 again’ portion of his comment.

“You’ve tried to go back and destroy the STCD before?”  
“I’ve tried more than once actually… But while certain things can be altered, like preventing someone from getting onto a bus or… pushing a person down when they should be standing, there are so many things that cannot be changed. There are moments, Agent Bering, that are fixed… and July the 2nd, 1977, is a fixed point in time. I created this device and there is no way for me to undo this fact.”

Even with Myka’s rather vast intelligence, the complete scope of what might happen to the world if the STCD were never invented is hard for her to imagine. Would there even be a Warehouse without the STCD? And where would she have ended up after the Secret Service, after Sam? Would anything at all be as it is now if that day in July never happened?

Also, after such a confession, Arthur Nielsen is now – technically - an enemy of the Warehouse.

When one becomes an agent at the Warehouse, after preliminary tests (both physical and psychological), they are then told the primary directive of every mission – to protect the past. A Warehouse agent is the last line of defense against those who would try to rearrange the past to suit their own whims or mad plans. If she were to follow this directive to the letter right now, then getting her tesla back would be the first step. And after turning the tide towards her advantage, she’d take Arthur Nielsen back to the Warehouse…

…and then she’d walk away from this time-jump as she has walked away from countless others.

But in spite of all that she should be doing, Myka still feels that this whole Arthur Nielsen-situation falls decidedly into that complicated area known as ‘gray’.

And the world of ‘gray’ is a world that Myka isn’t fond of dealing with.

So, the next best thing that Myka can do is to review the details with as much detachment as possible and to hold back from making any decisions until things slip into either the black or the white. She processes all of Arthur Nielsen’s words through various filters within her mind, cataloging the information she has gotten thus far into two groups – probably vital to probably just Arthur Nielsen’s mental meanderings. And while there are now more questions instead of more answers, some small part of Myka’s brain latches onto a seemingly insignificant piece of trivia within Arthur Nielsen’s little story.

“The story that you read, the one that made you want to explore time-travel—“  
“Ah yes, ‘Lest Darkness Fall’… It’s a great book, somewhat dated now I am sure… but still, the concept within de Camp’s story was unlike others that came before it… Martin Padway, through ingenuity and growth, was able to stop horrible things from happening… His traveling had a bigger purpose than just the act of traveling itself.”

Myka nods her head absent-mindedly at most of what Arthur Nielsen is saying while her thoughts are actually coalescing onto that thread she just couldn’t get a grasp on back at the Warehouse; she is in front of that whiteboard again, dates and places written down in black marker, and the connection between those time-jump destinations is becoming more solid now.

“And you said he was transported from the Pantheon in the year 1938… right?”

Arthur Nielsen sighs at her inquiry but it is accompanied with a slight grin as well.

“Yes, okay, it is pretty obvious, I know… Still, I doubt even the Regents have put it together just yet, so kudos to you, Agent Bering… I am curious, though… Do you know where the rest of the time-jumps are from? Or are you just really good at paying attention to an old man while he talks?”

Long before the Warehouse and even long before the Secret Service, Myka Bering used to be nothing more than a strange shadow of her father. Studious and quiet, she would spend hours upon hours reading in whatever little nook she could find in the Bering & Sons bookstore, content to let the world pass her by and to allow these words of wonder to become her friends; novels for companions and fictionally high ideals for emotions.

Her mother once said that that is why Myka and her father butted heads so often – they were too much alike.

Myka used to watch the way her father would gently turn the pages of some dusty find and she would mimic him with a five-year olds clumsy dedication. And being like him didn’t seem to so bad to Myka, at least not back then. So, she read at all hours and she sat at his feet – head turned upward in complete fascination – as he would weave fantastic tales about her ears.

It was within her heart that Myka’s father cultivated a love of the written word. And then, somewhere along the way, he left that garden to bloom without his care or attention.

Instead of growing wild, though, those buds began to rot and wither away to the black.

However, with the kind of memory that Myka has, things were not forgotten so much as they were left alone. Sometimes too jarring to recall, sometimes too painful to remember, but always there underneath the surface of her professional face is another Myka Bering – the one always with the book held close to her chest, asleep in some corner of her parents’ store, dreaming of faraway places that make the real world seem terribly dull.

“One of the destinations was for Hartford, Connecticut, in the year 1889…,” Myka begins, mind reeling backwards with speed, pulling up paragraphs and book covers and various titles, “…and that’s from ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’.”

Arthur Nielsen is watching her closely now, all keen with those owl-eyes wide and that mouth turned upward in fatherly-like satisfaction, and some deeper part of Myka registers this man’s expression with a sense of completely inappropriate glee.

That other Myka Bering is waking up and is rubbing her eyes and is wondering just how much time has passed since she last saw the world around her.

“Two down, Agent Bering…” Arthur Nielsen’s voice rattles around in her brain before moving down her spine like a good-natured challenge and Myka is suddenly quite eager to step up to this challenge, to prove herself, to show that she is smart and capable and everything that anyone could hope for her to be. Myka is suddenly not at all as she has been for years and years now; she is eleven or twelve again, she is that girl using her thumb for a bookmark, she is a head full of Shakespeare and Shelley and poets and pretend worlds.

For an endless moment or two, Myka doesn’t feel like a Warehouse agent anymore and that feeling is as unsettling as it is surprisingly wonderful.

She thinks a bit harder, digging past the obvious and straying towards the more obscure, and that’s where she finds her third destination; it hides behind another novel, a novel that Myka just happens to adore, and so the answer probably would have remained incognito were it not for the need to find it again.

“Rimbau’s ‘El anacronópete’ is the connection to the Ho’nan time-jump.” Myka answers and Arthur Nielsen is the picture of delight at her reply.

“Very well done, Agent Bering, very well done… ‘Who flies against time’… Admittedly I am not too familiar with that particular story but, uh, my traveling companion seemed to find it fitting. I imagine that she’d find your literary knowledge as impressive as I do…”

Myka’s mind conjures up two separate images of the absent Ms. Wells – one of a woman looking down at a miniature future with solemnity and one of a woman with icy rage strewn across her face – and, as with every other time so far, Arthur Nielsen’s face seems to fall at the mention of this ‘traveling companion’.

“Who is she? Why is she with you on this time-jump?”

The man releases another sigh but this time a smile does not follow. His gaze sort of shifts to the floor, eyes once more lost instead of present.

“You didn’t figure out the last destination, Agent Bering.” Arthur Nielsen says quietly and Myka realizes that he is right.

Every other date is accounted for, ticked off of an invisible list that Myka’s brain holds onto – three time-jumps related to stories about time-travel, one time-jump to the year 1977, and then…

…And then there’s Paris in 1899, a place and a time that seems to mean nothing at all.

“It was about three years ago, Agent Bering, when I finally decided that the STCD was more of a problem than a solution… Well, it was three years ago when I took it upon myself to actually try and alter what I had done in 1977…” Arthur’s voice is reserved now, no longer boisterous or chatty in tone, and Myka turns her body towards the man as he speaks in order to catch each low sentence uttered.

“…But my thoughts and beliefs about what I had been a part of, about what the Warehouse was doing… I had begun to change my mind about so many things, going back much further than three years… And when I realized that I couldn’t change that day in July 1977, I began to work on making the STCD better… Not for the Warehouse and not for my own sense of pride, but for people like Ms. Wells… for people whose lives were unintentionally affected by my invention…”

Myka glances at the man’s profile, at the blank expression that he wears, and words that Arthur Nielsen said earlier come back around in her own voice – unbidden but no less honest and Myka doesn’t need Arthur Nielsen’s confirmation one way or the other because Myka knows these words to be correct.

“Hers is a ruined life.”

/ /

_None of this is real._

That’s what her mind keeps repeating as she walks around aimlessly, moving past people as though she were smoke – there but barely so, just a hint in a world ripe with answers.

And she believes that she is nothing more than this now.

All the meaning was stripped away as she watched the light slowly die in her daughter’s eyes and Helena Wells hasn’t been a whole person since that moment. She’s lost track of time, though. Was it only days ago or has it been years? Is this really the future that she finds her feet treading upon? Or is it just the imaginings of a mad-woman, all ink-stained scribbles and scratches in some asylum?

She used to write endless pages about the future. She used to ponder how society would change for the better, with the growing of minds to match the creativity of the far-flung souls to come. She used think of getting older and of watching her daughter become a woman in a truly new age – an age of intelligence and of curiosity, an age of high ideals and of equality.

Helena had such hope.

And then all of that hope was dragged away; promises painfully and oh so pathetically ripped from her body… and now she has lost track of time, even as she travels through it. Even as she becomes a part of so many fantastical dreams, Helena cannot spare the energy to care about such things anymore.

She’d trade all of this technology and all of this ingenuity for her daughter, for her dear, sweet Christina. She’d trade this experience in a single heartbeat if it meant that Christina would be returned to her arms. And instead of creating some other world in which to hang her wishes, she’d stay right there in England and never set sail for any other shore; she’d give it all up, no questions asked, to turn back the hours and recapture the joy that has been stolen.

_None of this is real._

Reality is back in 1899, after-all, waiting to be dismantled and Helena has but one sliver of longing left within her heart; this desire is a wicked and wanting thing that cuts through the muscle and takes hold of her senses, causing words that have never passed her lips before to come so swiftly.

It was only yesterday that she was a writer.

But today finds her contemplating death in the most literal of ways.

…And Helena fears that she is nothing more than this now.

/ /


	8. Chapter 8

_**PRESENT** _

/ 

Pete Lattimer doesn’t like the feeling that is jumping around in his gut.

Butterflies are for love and rough-hewn knots are for anger, but this feeling is something else entirely. This feeling leaves him light-headed and makes the fluorescent glow of this lab seem too bright; this feeling causes his fingertips to tap along the edge of the counter-top.

It’s like he is missing something. It’s like he is looking really hard at a painting but there’s a whole other image underneath the obvious.

_Just like those Magic Eye things._

But no matter how many times he blinks and then resumes staring, Pete isn’t seeing the bigger picture.

“How long has it been?” He asks for the fourth time in the past hour and Claudia looks at him briefly with some annoyance.   
“You know how long it has been. Just… try to relax. Want more boy-bands?”

She smiles at him, as if she hopes he will return her attempt at humor with some of his own – but Pete cannot find the focus to be funny right now. All of his attention is going down one road and one road only: an agent has not returned to the Warehouse.

He is sure it has happened before. He is sure that there have been times when an agent has landed in the wrong place or at the wrong second… and then they were lost forever. It’s a risk that every one of them chooses to take – that they may not make it back in one piece, that they may not make it back at all. And Pete is sure that it has happened before but…

It hasn’t ever happened to someone that he knows, to someone that he respects, to someone that he genuinely likes.

And Pete can see it on each face in this laboratory – the concern and the questions that no one is voicing. He can see the way Claudia keeps checking the monitors, keeps looking for a signal that has now been dormant for more than three hours; he can see into the eyes of the other agents who have returned safely and there is a mixture of ‘what’s gone wrong?’ with ‘I am glad it is not me’ swirling in their depths. Even the Regents present – Kosan and Stanton – seem agitated… in their own special Regent sort of way; it’s around the mouth, lips too thin, and it’s the way they whisper to one another, short and sharp hisses in an otherwise quiet space.

It is no wonder that everyone is worried, though, because Myka Bering isn’t the kind of agent to not come back.

_She always comes back._

Pete wasn’t sure that Myka Bering would be the type of person that he would work well with. During orientation, each agent was required to do a little meet-and-greet with their fellow agents and while most of the others had a sense of brevity about this forced ‘getting to know you, Myka Bering didn’t crack a smile during the whole event.

 _At least, not a real smile…_ Pete knows what a ‘real’ smile looks like and the tight, bland expression that Myka Bering delivered to each offered hand was nowhere near actually happiness.

But you cannot judge someone based off of their face during a government-agency social gathering, that’s what Pete decided that seemingly long ago evening…

Actions, after all, speak louder.

And Myka Bering’s actions practically scream until hoarse.

She’s incredibly serious, yes, but she is incredibly competent; she is quick to pick up on details that others may miss and she isn’t distracted by outside influences during a jump – she’s a great partner to have at your side. But beyond that, Pete still didn’t think of Myka Bering as the kind of person he would ‘like.’ You know, the kind of person you could talk to about football or that bad date you once had or about this crazy damn job…

Myka Bering doesn’t come off like the kind of person Pete could talk to like that.

And, of course, she isn’t. But you cannot judge someone based off of your own impressions of them, that’s what Pete knows to be true.

_Actions always speak louder._

/

_“This is called shit-creek, Bering, and we are up it without a paddle.”_

_Pete isn’t sure if the lab-tech back at the Warehouse is a rookie or what, but they couldn’t have landed in a worse spot – smack dab in the middle of a riot of some sort, with people either running or shoving one another. When the tell-tale sound of gunshots start ringing out, that’s when Pete is shaken from his momentary stupor by a strong push to his shoulder._

_“Move, Agent Lattimer. We need to get out of sight. Now.”_

_He careens towards a darkened alley-way with Agent Bering close on his heels. Both of them press as close as they can to the wall at their backs while various voices echo loudly around them. There is a hint of smoke in the air, like too many caps fired off at a kid’s birthday party, and that’s when a siren begins to wail from somewhere up above their heads._

_“What the hell is going on?” Pete demands in a harsh whisper, not sure if Agent Bering can hear him over the symphony of sound pummeling the atmosphere or not._

_They were supposed to land just outside of Moscow, in the year 1952, in order to stop a car full of men who were intent on blowing up a building. They know the make and model of the car; they know the face and the name of the driver – Anton Kvitko – and the Warehouse, as always, told them that that was all they needed to know. But if things go wrong, knowing more would work to an agent’s advantage… wouldn’t it? That’s what Pete thinks in general and that’s what Pete knows to be true in this particular moment._

_“Do you think we landed too late? Do you think we’ve missed our mark?” Pete asks the questions rapidly, coughing a little as he does so because the smoke is getting worse in the narrow back-street they are hiding within. There is the distant sound of thunder that makes Pete instinctually look up but the yelling gets louder and suddenly people are flooding the alley-way._

_And that’s when Pete realizes that what he heard wasn’t thunder at all... and that they were too late._

_In the crush of those on the move and those obviously in pursuit, Agent Bering nudges him to go with the flow of the crowd. More fighting breaks out and Pete swears he sees a nightstick or two come swinging down on some heads… and he has to force himself to keep going, to stay focused, and to not interfere in any other way than what is asked of him by the Warehouse._

_Agent Bering doesn’t seem to have a problem doing this._

_He catches a glimpse of her eyes amongst the smoke and the terrified shuffling of bodies – and she is so completely in ‘the zone’; gaze set dead ahead, with one hand out like a side-to-side battering ram and the other hand hooked ever so slightly to her hip where her tesla resides._

_It’s an impressive sight actually._

_It’s so impressive that Pete only looks away when he slams into the back of another person. The loss of footing sends him sprawling backwards onto the pavement; his body twists as it goes down so that his hip slams into the hard ground and a groan of pain leaves his lips as a result. When pair of military-style boots get too close to his face, Pete scrambles to stand up and get away._

_Because Pete Lattimer is not at all willing to be caught by some Cold War-era Russian policeman._

_The officer is shouting at him, a blur of noise that means absolutely nothing, and Pete is just trying to back away, to find an opening in which to disappear – but this guy isn’t buying whatever Pete is selling. And out comes the nightstick, quicker than Pete would have anticipated, swinging sideways and crashing into Pete’s ribs._

_That’s gonna leave a bruise, Pete’s head supplies helpfully as he manages to shift away from another direct blow and then he lowers his body in order to knock the guy to the ground with his shoulder. It works, which is great, but it draws attention to Pete and he looks up just a little too late as another officer ‘drops the hammer’ – so to speak._

_Pete’s vision goes white for a moment and all the sound around him turns cacophonous, ringing in his ears like millions of bells going off at the same time, and then out of the corner of his eye… there is Agent Bering, tesla raised… and then that same tesla is shoved unceremoniously into the officer’s stomach... and a spider-web of electricity covers the man’s body…_

_…and then Pete slumps towards the ground, blacking out before he ever reaches the surface._

/

“Agent Lattimer.”

The memory is shattered with Regent Kosan’s voice and the pieces recede from Pete’s view once more.

“Yes, sir?”  
“Regent Stanton and I think it would be wise to send in reconnaissance for Agent Bering. This will not be a solo time-jump, however… We’ve chosen another agent to go with you as a safety precaution. Technician Donovan will be assisting and pertinent information will be provided momentarily.”

Pete just nods his head in affirmation, not even waiting for Regent Kosan to step away before moving towards the chair – gaze set dead ahead, focused on the time-jump and on making sure Agent Bering is okay. Claudia Donovan stands beside him, stare just a little too heavy on his profile, and Pete finally breaks his concentration to look back at her.

“What is it?”

The younger woman blinks and worries her bottom lip with her teeth for a second. But she doesn’t reply to his question, opting to turn away instead and to reset the coordinates for earlier than the previous jump. And Pete gets that feeling again, as if the whole world were slightly off-kilter – not enough to throw everyone off their game, but just enough… just enough to make everything seem wrong somehow…

“…Don’t go in guns blazing, okay?” Claudia’s voice is soft and for his ears only, her body still facing away from him as he sits and waits for Regent Kosan to return.  
“I just want to get Agent Bering back, that’s all… She’s… She’s a friend.”

And it’s funny because he has never actually said that to anyone; he’s never actually said it to himself either. But it is true. It is more true than anything else and Pete isn’t sure when that happened – was it just over time spent working together? Or was it the moment she saved his life in Russia in 1952, grabbing a hold of his unconscious body and getting them back to the Warehouse? Was it just a case of eventual camaraderie? Or was it the look in Myka Bering’s eyes when he finally came to, that look of deep relief and that infinite second of very real fear?

“…She’s a friend…,” Pete says again, eyes flickering to Claudia who is looking at him once more, “…and I owe her.”

Regent Kosan returns at that moment and Claudia turns away again as Kosan quickly relays information for Pete to absorb – the year, the city, and the actual seriousness of this entire mission. Regent Stanton also makes an appearance at Pete’s side, stressing the need for focus on this time-jump and that the goal is to ascertain first, then make a move – ‘no heroics, Agent Lattimer, just find out what has gone wrong and attempt to calmly rectify the situation.’

His thoughts get stuck on the word ‘calmly’, though. And he glances at Claudia Donovan’s face, at the almost-glare that she is directing towards the iPod in her hands – hands that grip too tightly to be normal – and this new feeling that isn’t going away just get stronger and stronger.

_What the hell is going on here?_

It’s not the first time in his life that he has asked this question and he doubts that it will be the last. But there’s no time to pose this inquiry out loud and Pete doesn’t think that he’d get an answer anyway.

The STCD is being attached to his wrist and the Regents are whispering again while watching Claudia’s every move, watching as she places two vials of mercury into the device and activates one of them with the push of a button. Claudia begins to lower her head-phone invention over Pete’s head and, as she does so, her quiet voice slides into his awareness – low and serious, not at all like the Claudia he has known since working for the Warehouse.

“I’ve got a friend out there, too… Please bring him back safely.”

And then she is gone again and the head-phones are down and a song from The Clash is pounding into his ears as the mercury starts to take affect – hot and cold in his veins, the sensation of his insides moving forward before his skin and bones can catch up – and then he is gone from the Warehouse all together.

/


	9. Chapter 9

/ /

_**PAST** _

/ /

_“Hers is a ruined life.”_

/ /

The pavilion sits silent around the two of them, minutes slipping by one after the other, and Myka turns her gaze from inward to outward once more – and Arthur Nielsen’s stare is right there to greet her, his focus no longer fixed upon some unseen point in the distance.

The man is looking right at Myka now, studying her with each rapid flicker of his glass-covered eyes. It’s as if he is seeing her for the first time or, oddly enough, as if some part of Myka has just now been revealed to him – and he wants to make sure that this revelation is to be trusted.

Before she can interrupt his quiet scrutiny, though, Arthur Nielsen’s hands are taking hold of her own - and Myka resists the strong impulse to pull away. She resists the years of specialized training that has taught her how to break bones and how to cause the most pain and how to disarm someone who has – momentarily – gotten the better of her.

Myka resists what has come so naturally to her for so long and a mixture of discomfort and anxiety-riddled anticipation travels up and down her spine with this inaction.

“You are going to help Ms. Wells… You are going to help her, Agent Bering…”

It isn’t a demand, though it could sound like one to the untrained ear; it isn’t a statement said with cold determination or with a dire warning attached to it either. 

Arthur Nielsen’s hushed words carry the weight of absolute faith.

And she wants to balk at his surety; she wants to wrestle these elusive answers to the ground until they are beaten into submission. She wants to get her STCD back and push this time-jump far away from her mind. She doesn’t want to know just how Arthur Nielsen’s creation destroyed Ms. Wells’ world and she doesn’t want to recognize such rage, such anguish in another person’s face. She doesn’t want to think about who she used to be – before the Warehouse, before Sam…

Myka doesn’t want to ‘help’ anyone at all – least of all herself.

“Does this tender moment before me imply that we have reached some kind of an accord with Agent Bering?”

And Myka slowly looks away from Arthur – away from his calm hold, away from his steady gaze – and falls right into the cool, questioning stare of Ms. Wells. And the response should be ‘no’, that’s what Myka should say…

_What is going on with you, Bering? Who the hell are you today?_

“…Yes… for now…,” is what Myka says instead.

And the words ‘I am going to help you’ are never actually said aloud by Myka.

In fact, Myka says very little as the three of them leave the 1939 World’s Fair behind. Arthur Nielsen is the only one doing much talking at all – random bits of information delivered about certain ‘futuristic’ displays as they make their way to the main gate, mumbling thoughts on where they can get a room for the night and the ways in which he will go about obtaining funds for said room.

And Myka is pretty sure she can walk just fine now, but Ms. Wells still offers up her arm and Myka still takes it – as if it were somehow second nature for the both of them, as if it were already a habit neither of them are quick to break.

And the words ‘I am going to help you’ are never actually said aloud by Myka.

But, as Ms. Wells noted in her singular inquiry, the implications are still very clear indeed.

/ /

_…and there is a field of the brightest green, extending further than the eye can see. And she dips one hand down, fingers sifting through and brushing against the soft feather-like leaves of tall grass…_

_…and her heart begins to beat so very hard, so hard that her bones seem to rattle, and when she finally takes a shuddering breath… the air is so sweet and so pure within her lungs that she feels like crying…_

_…and she hasn’t cried in such a long time…_

_…it’s been such a very, very long time…_

/ / 

Myka’s eyes open suddenly, one hand gripping the bedspread beneath her and the other hand automatically reaching out for a bedside table – and a firearm – that is nowhere to be found. And it feels like air has become lodged in her chest, creating this painful weight that is keeping her from sitting up, and she is gasping instead of breathing. Her eyes blink and blink, over and over, but everything seems so dark and it… and it feels as though… 

_…as though I am still moving, still traveling…_

…as though her whole body is filled up with quicksilver, as though the mercury is running rampant in her veins, and Myka feels the very real urge to scream out-loud in fear. 

And when the sensation of hands pressing down upon her shoulders registers, Myka’s reaction is immediate - oxygen floods her struggling lungs and she is moving on instinct now, arms rising up and then out to knock this stranger’s hold. There is the abrupt crash of a body against Myka’s own and an exhalation forced out by impact, but Myka is already wrapping her arms about this person tightly and rolling them to the side until they fall a short distance to the hard floor below. 

Myka blinks her eyes again as she places the palm of one hand against this person’s chest… and then the darkness slowly recedes, becoming less oppressive and more like the shadowy hours of dusk. She takes note of her own heavy breathing, of the trembling of her extended arm… and then the surrounding details begin to take shape once more – the dull shine of a faux-brass bedpost, a window left open and a breeze that carries the sound of traffic, a leather rucksack left unceremoniously by the door, the four corners of this small boarding-house room in 1939 New York… and that’s when Myka looks at the person she is on top of. 

The chest underneath Myka’s palm rises and falls rapidly and the pupils are dilated to the point of appearing completely black – and Myka finally recognizes that it is Ms. Wells looking back at her. 

And that feeling of perpetual motion slides away from Myka’s body as quickly as it seems to have originally arrived. 

“I… I don’t—“Myka attempts to explain herself, without even fully knowing where to start, but Ms. Wells puts a stop to whatever Myka might be trying to say. 

“You were weeping as you slept, Agent Bering… I merely wanted to calm you down.” 

Ms. Wells tone is quiet, as if the woman were confessing a secret, and Myka is no longer pushing her hand down upon the woman’s chest but she hasn’t removed her hand either; there is the barest hint of pressure being exerted, right at the center, and every time Ms. Wells takes a breath… 

…Myka can feel that same breath ripple into her body as if it were her own. 

“Weeping…?” 

The one-word question comes out of Myka’s mouth as a confused whisper and the woman responds by reaching up to slowly drag a solitary fingertip down the length of Myka’s cheek. And Myka can feel the coolness against her flesh, the damp stain of sadness, and the hand that rests against Ms. Wells’s chest curls inward, gently tugging the material of the woman’s top along the way. 

“’Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not…’”*  
“’…and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.’”* 

And as Ms. Wells hand falls away from its perch upon Myka’s face, a small smile flutters across the woman’s lips. 

“My dear Agent Bering, if only I had met you a lifetime ago…” 

There is the creaking sound of a door opening and then the room is filled up with light from overhead. And Myka shields her squinting eyes as she looks over into the face of Arthur Nielsen – who is looking back at her with curious perplexity, paper bag seemingly forgotten as it dangles from his right hand. 

“...Why are the two of you on the floor?” He asks and Myka has absolutely no idea what to say because ‘I had a dream that felt real and I couldn’t breathe and then I attacked Ms. Wells’ just doesn’t sound right rolling around Myka’s brain – even though it is the honest-to-goodness truth. 

She can feel the subtle shift of Ms. Wells beneath her, though, and as the woman pushes herself up onto her elbows to meet Arthur Nielsen’s puzzled expression, Myka’s body leans back to accommodate the movement. But she still does not move away from the other woman and Ms. Wells doesn’t ask her to move either. 

“We were making conversation, Mr. Nielsen. That is all.” Ms. Wells replies with that same small smile gracing her mouth and while Arthur Nielsen doesn’t look too convinced of the woman’s answer, his response is to lift up the paper bag and give it a little shake. 

“I’ve got food… Well, I say food but really, it’s just bread… Day-old bread, too, but people are only so generous to a man without much money… I had to keep reminding myself that ‘two bits’ means a quarter… You know, like in the song?” 

Arthur Nielsen places the bag down on the bed and then begins tossing pieces of bread wrapped up in light-brown parchment paper onto the mattress. 

“Well, it is certainly not an evening at Rules, but needs must I suppose.” Ms. Wells says with a soft sigh as her body starts to turn towards the edge of the bed, arm snaking out for a slice of some bakery’s cast-offs. And with the delicate push of this woman’s hip into the inside of her thigh, Myka is suddenly made very aware of her current position. 

And she finally wakes up from whatever daze has taken hold of her. 

Myka backs off of Ms. Wells slowly, as if moving quietly will keep everyone from noticing where she has just been. And to his credit, Arthur Nielsen doesn’t even look over at Myka as she gets up from the floor. But Ms. Wells glances at her, eyes still dark and gaze still knowing, and Myka clears her throat as she very pointedly looks away from the other woman. 

_She’s figured you out._

And the knowledge comes unbidden, ragged in its simple truth, and Myka Bering is quick to duck-and-cover within her own body now; quick to put the walls back up, quick to keep her own mask in place at all costs… 

_…even if it is already too late for such things, even if my hand has been exposed since the very moment this time-jump began…_

…because Myka cannot afford to keep giving away these pieces of herself. 

Not to Ms. Wells and not to anyone else either. 

/ / 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> both '*' belong to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


	10. Chapter 10

/ /

Helena sits quietly in her chair, one booted foot on the floor while the other booted foot rests upon the sill of an open window, and she focuses the rudimentary part of her mind on the bread that she chews - ten to fifteen slight rotations of her jaw, swallow, and then repeat.

She spares a brief look towards Arthur Nielsen as he talks, prattling on about the differences between his ‘time’ and this particular past. And she sort of feels like laughing because all of this – 1939, 1977, 2012 – is just a future she was never meant to see; all of this is just a future she was only meant to imagine, never to experience.

However, most of her observational skills are trained on Agent Bering.

She does her best to keep her watchful gaze discreet but, in a room this cramped and devoid of personal space, Helena knows that her dedicated study has not gone unnoticed by the other woman.

Hence, Agent Bering retreats in the only manner that is possible - the woman does not meet Helena’s stare, not even once.

Those eyes are kept for the walls or for Arthur or for the day-old bread held between fingers; those eyes are kept blank and disinterested…

…and quite unlike how they appeared only a few moments previous.

Wild and a little terrified, looking very hard but not seeing anything of this current reality – those were Agent Bering’s eyes after Helena’s back hit the wooden floor, after the definite press of a strong hand landed upon Helena’s chest; bewildered and a little broken, with edges still heavy with some kind of anguish – those were Agent Bering’s eyes as Helena slowly sank into their depths and reached out to run her finger over such sadness…

And then Christina’s face flickers to cold life within Helena’s head, so very pale and so damned empty, and Helena’s gaze turns abruptly away from Agent Bering and to the busy New York streets below.

_There is no more room for sentiment. I cannot house anyone else’s sorrow but my own._

There are automobiles moving along those streets, coughing up black smoke and blowing out trumpet calls; there are flashing lights of white and blue and red, waving out to those nighttime faces with insistence… and there are millions of people, shuffling from one place to another, never knowing of the strange travelers in their midst…

_…never knowing about the wicked twists and turns that the future shall take…_

And so it is with a glare that she looks upon this ‘new’ world, with its endless collection of the blithely unaware, and she’d feel pity for them – the men, women and children of 1939 – if her heart would allow it; she’d rush out into that sea of metal and warn them of the agony to come… if her heart could manage such a selfless feat anymore.

But her heart is shattered and repair rests with the very people who caused it to crack – with the daughter so swiftly taken and with the man who didn’t intend to steal life away.

A tickling sort-of sensation moves over the side of her face and, as she swings her attention back to the room, there is Agent Bering – no longer the watched but now the watcher.

Instead of looking away, though, Helena faces this scrutiny without hesitation.

And she tries not to see the places where their misery overlaps, tries not to see those separate but similar wounds, tries not to see the battle between apathy and empathy that is playing out within Agent Bering’s eyes…

…as that battle is surely playing out within Helena’s own gaze as well.

“So, if the two of you have talked… does that mean everything is… well, in order now?”

Arthur Nielsen’s voice slices through their locked stares and Agent Bering is the first one to break, blinking with eyes slightly wide and startled. It isn’t until the woman looks towards Arthur Nielsen, though, that Helena allows her eyes to falter, falling to her lap with a shuddering sigh.

It is only in moments like this, after she has had to hold her ground and appear so completely resolute, that Helena actually feels the pain in her body; pain that is not just physical, not just from landing unceremoniously in different eras, but an ache that rests much deeper. Every time she breathes, a vice closes around her lungs – and she knows that this impossibly strong hold is that of despair, of the reckless tears she has yet to shed, of being haunted by what she has lost.

Every time Helena blinks, there is Christina and the very bones of her body want to crumble to dust; every time she does anything, there is the lifeless image of her child and Helena becomes nothing again.

“…’In order’?” Agent Bering questions, still sounding too rattled by recent events, and Helena listens as Arthur Nielsen opens up another piece of stale bread.

“Ms. Wells has told you what happened… and what exactly we are going to be doing…?” The man asks instead of states and Helena lifts her eyes from her own person to witness Agent Bering’s response.

And just like before, the woman is already watching Helena again.

“No. She hasn’t told me anything.”

Arthur Nielsen clears his throat at that comment and Helena feels her jaw tighten against the words that must soon leave her tongue. 

“Ms. Wells… Agent Bering needs to know everything if she is going to help us… She needs to know why we are here.”

And in Agent Bering’s face, Helena catches sight of the words clearly: _‘you’ve seen my shadows and now you must show me your darkness.’_ It is a comparison of scars that is demanded, an explanation for this utter madness that they are moving within and it is the only thing Helena can think about and it is the last thing Helena wants to think about.

_Everything is Christina, though, and that is all that matters… in the end…_

Helena turns back to the world below this small room and she leans forward until her forehead comes into contact with the window frame, pushing out the pointless present and slipping effortlessly into the past.

And truth spills from her lips like shards of glass.

“We are going to the year 1899… and we are going to prevent the murder of my daughter.”

/ /

_“None of this is real.”_

_But no matter how many times she closes and then reopens her eyes, the sight that lies before her does not change. The table is still knocked over, with fine lace spilling onto the polished wooden floor and then their embroidered edges sink into a river of lamp oil. The overcast light of another rainy Paris afternoon comes through the pieces of a broken window and dulls the minute details with gray shades – the intricate design of the mantle moulding no longer brilliant, the glittering of crystal decanters no longer shining._

_And then there is only red – magnificent and cruel and blinding._

_“…This cannot be real…”_

_Such a dark and vibrant color, billowing out into the ivory patterns of a child’s dress, and as though she were in a dream, Helena places her hands upon its approach – right where the red meets the white – and her shaking fingers press down and she closes her eyes and then reopens them._

_But nothing has changed._

_And the whole world seems to still – no clock chiming from the hall, no clatter of horse-hooves on stone nor the distant whistle of protection coming far too late seems to permeate this deathly quiet._

_The universe itself has ceased to be and there is only this moment in time; there is only Helena’s hands stained with her daughter’s blood and there is only a heart that no longer beats as it should and there is nothing else…_

_This moment is all that is left of Helena now._

_And she stares out into the room, palms still flush with Christina’s stomach, and in the corner is the nanny – silver hair falling out of a once tidy bun, lip split and oozing life, body crumpled up like paper thrown away… alive but barely._

_And then there is the dead man in their midst._

_This man left behind by the others, never to enjoy the spoils of a robbery apparently gone very wrong. And Helena looks at his face, his jaw slack and gaze frozen, and something terribly hard takes root in her soul. It is with a cool detachment that she studies this man, searching for the cause of his demise and yet finding no obvious reason upon the surface._

_It is as though his body just quit working in mid-step, dropping to the ground without preamble…_

_…and Helena wishes he would spring to life once more, stunned with renewed breath… just so she could take it away from him again, bit by bit…_

_A sudden sound breaks into her awareness, a faint but repeated tone coming from the dead man’s body, and Helena keeps one hand on her daughter – loathe to let go of Christina for even one second – while her other hand seeks out the path to this incessant chiming._

_But what Helena ends up finding makes no sense whatsoever._

_Attached to the man’s wrist, with monotone melody continuous and joined by the flashing of a small orange light, is a device that baffles even Helena’s rather imaginative brain. It looks like nothing she has ever seen before and she suspects that no one else has seen anything like this before as well._

_The device appears to be mostly metallic, but with some sort of glass-looking vial embedded at the top and within that vial there seems to be some kind of substance; a liquid that shimmers and glows even as the clouds outside cover up the sunlight, making such a display difficult by normal means._

_She lightly runs her fingers over this bizarre object, finding exactly one protrusion at the side, and without thinking it through... Helena pushes this button until it gives…_

/ /

_And everything changes._

/ / 

“Mr. Nielsen tells me that his invention shouldn’t have worked the way it did when I pressed that button. I should have remained in Paris while that man’s body jettisoned through time and space…”

Helena closes her eyes and remembers the sensation of being pulled against her will, invisible strings wrapped around her insides and looped about her limbs. 

“But fate was not content until it could play one last game with my life, Agent Bering… I was taken from my Christina’s side and deposited into your century…”

Helena remembers feeling disoriented as her unsteady gaze spun around an unknown place – tables and walls and floors of blinding white; Helena remembers feeling frightened, remembers her hands shaking beyond her control… and then she remembers the realization that Christina was no longer with her – not just dead but completely gone… and Helena remembers crying out, grasping at the cold, hard floor for a daughter she could not find…

“…living within a waking nightmare…”

Helena presses her head more firmly against the window frame, relishing the discomfort that comes with this push of a sharp wooden edge into her flesh. And this action staves off a tidal wave of misery that has threatened to overwhelm her since the moment she walked into that Paris home and found Christina lying on the ground.

Helena has yet to shed a single tear.

First it was shock that kept the weeping at bay, then it was a steady numbness… and now she cannot give in to the heartache, lest she sacrifice all sense completely and have to watch this chance to alter the past slip through her fingers.

Helena takes a deep breath and opens her eyes again. And the New York streets are still awake with noise, still alive with the masses, and she buries the grief once more – clearing it from her eyes, shaking it down from her shoulders – before turning her attention back to Agent Bering and Arthur Nielsen.

“So, Agent Bering, now you know everything... Can we still count on your assistance?”

Her voice does not crack, nor does it waver, with this inquiry and the images of her sweet child are set aside, left to wait impatiently for Helena’s inevitable return. And in Christina’s place there is now the hard-hearted determination of one who has nothing left to lose; there is now a spine of steel to hold up a body that so wants to collapse and to never rise again.

Helena watches the various emotions roll over Agent Bering’s face, the interesting interplay of rational versus instinctual – and where these two elements cross one another, where they intersect in the woman’s eyes – but the decision that was previously offered still held a note of doubt.

Now, the choice has been more clearly made.

“Yes. I will help you.”

At the sound of Agent Bering’s softly spoken compliance, Arthur Nielsen smiles warmly and Helena swallows down a small amount of fear that was still lingering, managing a nod of the head in Agent Bering’s direction before turning away once more…

…back to the streets, back to the night swiftly approaching, back to the Christina within her mind…

/ /

_And so everything will change again._

/ /


End file.
